Weathering

'Monumental ' IBRAM X. KENDI'Eloquent, comprehensive and compassionate' LINDA VILLAROSA'Superbly insightful' HARRIET A. WASHINGTONFusing science and social justice, Weathering offers an urgent and necessary exploration of how systemic injustice erodes the health of marginalized people. Renowned public health researcher Dr Arline T. Geronimus coined the term 'weathering' to describe what public health statistics have long evidenced: systemic injustice takes a physical, oftentimes deadly, toll on Black, brown, working class and poor communities. They are disproportionately more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and die at much younger ages than their middle- and upper-class white counterparts. Weathering argues that health and ageing have more to do with how society treats us than how well we take care of ourselves. It reveals what happens to human bodies as they attempt to withstand and overcome the challenges that society leverages at them, and details how this process ravages health. Until now, there has been little discussion about the insidious effects of social injustice on the body. Weathering shifts the paradigm and provides compelling solutions, shining a light on the topic and offering a roadmap for hope.

The culmination of a life's groundbreaking work... frequently jaw-dropping... reasons for optimism too... crisp, backed with evidence and rather heroic in spirit, One of the most significant public health research discoveries of the last few decades is this: when it comes to health and aging, how society treats us has more of an impact than how we take care of ourselves. In this monumental book, Arline T. Geronimus meticulously demonstrates that systemic injustice isn't just oppressive - it's toxic on the body; it's deadly, That body of evidence, which Dr. Geronimus describes in her new book, Weathering has turned her into an "icon" and provided a framework for understanding health inequities that goes deeper than blaming poor health on lifestyle choices or flawed genetics, Superbly insightful. If this unique volume did nothing else, I would recommend Weathering as the book on healthcare disparities. But it also distills and delivers its scholarship and insight in engaging narratives, including compelling personal histories so that you will glean your education in racial health disparities-and how to end them-quite painlessly. In fact, reading Weathering, with its clear-eyed mixture of reality and hope, is a delight, Arline Geronimus brings together a lifetime of research, scholarship, and experience to explain how continually battling back oppression hurts the human body. Her book offers an eloquent, comprehensive and compassionate framework for understanding the physiological effects of societal harm and a path to healing

Arline T. Geronimus is an American public health researcher and research professor at the University of Michigan's Population Studies Center. She is also the Center's associate director and a professor of Health Behavior & Health Education at the University of Michigan. She is known for proposing the 'weathering hypothesis'.