The Politics of Public Health in the United States. By Kent
Patel and Mark E. Rushefsky. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. 346p. $84.95
cloth, $29.95 paper.
“It is clear,” write the authors, “that the public
health system in the U.S. has suffered from political neglect in the last
50 years or so, and the revitalization of the U.S. public health system
will necessitate confronting many of the challenges facing it in the
twenty-first century” (p. 7). Kent Patel and Mark Rushefsky's
survey of the politics of American public health argues that our system
emphasizes curative treatment of existing illnesses at the expense of
activities aimed at preventing them. Although the United States spends
more per capita on health care than any other country, public health
activities account for only about 2% to 3% of such expenditures. The low
priority given public health, they argue, accounts for America's poor
performance relative to other industrialized countries on measures of life
expectancy and infant mortality.