The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health

## Examines the diverse, and often conflicted, political status of health in the United States from World War II to Covid-19 * Explores the histories, cultures, policies and technologies of American health and medicine as they have developed over a 75-year period * Brings together 45 experts from the US, Canada and the UK working across the fields of medicine, health policy, political and social history, political science, environmental studies, law, and cultural studies * Uses the lenses of class, poverty, race, gender, sexuality and locality to study the concepts, policies and lived realities of U.S. healthcare and medical treatment * Explores key controversies in American health, including global health and new technologies By emphasising the plurality of health experiences, and balancing national and transnational perspectives with the lived realities of diverse communities, this groundbreaking collection expands far beyond biomedical conceptions of health. Together, the contributors take a multi-layered view of the politics of US healthcare by examining it from historical, cultural, medical, sociological, legal, ethical and environmental perspectives. Chapters consider major health institutions and the federal policies that guide them; the intersection between health and social movements; the contours of health and illness with respect to race, gender, sexuality, age and region; and the US’s often-conflicted role in global health governance. Contents 5 Notes on Contributors 8 Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945–2020 17 Part I: Geography, Community and American Health 27 Introduction 27 1 Health and Inequality in the Postwar Metropolis 31 2 Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural Communities 49 3 The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health Care 67 4 Latinxs and the US Health Care System 82 5 American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle 97 Part II: Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories 117 Introduction 117 6 The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950–60: Detractors and Defenders 121 7 Beyond the Cancer Wars 136 8 A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic 149 9 The Politics of ‘Obesity’: Medicalization, Stigmatization and Liberation of Fat Bodies 165 10 Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive Disorder 183 Part III: The Politics of Children’s Health 199 Introduction 199 11 US Children’s Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological Conflict 203 12 Autism and the Anti-Vaccine Movement 220 13 Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on Screen 236 14 On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender Children 252 15 Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and Care 261 Part IV: The Institutional Matrix of Health Care 281 Introduction 281 16 The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals 285 17 Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Center System 305 18 The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to Iraq 322 19 The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health Services 338 20 The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research Infrastructure 354 Part V: The White House, Congress and Health Reform 373 Introduction 373 21 Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935–50 377 22 Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage 391 23 Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990s 405 24 The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump 422 25 Obamacare and Its Critics 440 Part VI: Justice, Ethics and American Health 457 Introduction 457 26 Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to Health 461 27 Genetics, Health and the Making of America’s Triracial Isolates, 1950–80 475 28 The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a Pandemic 492 29 Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun Violence 509 30 Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States 527 Part VII: Public Health and Global Health 547 Introduction 547 31 Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century America 551 32 Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970s 569 33 Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public 585 34 Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond 601 35 Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary Health 617 Bibliography 634 Index 644 This volume re-examines the history of twentieth-century Christian theology by tracing key concepts, problems and themes as they develop in context with new perspectives opened up by contemporary theology itself