Health and Health Care Concerns among Women and Racial and Ethnic Minorities

This volume covers macro-level system issues and micro-level issues involving health and health care concerns for women, and racial and ethnic minorities. Topics covered include examination of health and health care issues of patients or of providers of care especially those related to concerns for women and for racial and ethnic minorities in different countries. This volume is divided into four sections. The first section introduces the volume. The second section covers women and reproductive related health and health care concerns, using data sources from the United States and the UK. The third section examines health care practitioners, health and health care, relating to issues of women or racial and ethnic minorities, using data sources from the US and Canada. The last section relates specifically to racial and ethnic minorities and health and health care. Chapters focus on Black men, on Asian Americans, on Mexican Americans, and across racial and/or ethnic differences.

Contributed by sociologists and health specialists from the US, UK, Canada, and Brazil, the 13 essays in this collection examine health and health care issues among women and minorities in the US, UK, and Canada. They consider women and reproductive-related health and health care concerns, including the relationship of pregnancy intentions to breastfeeding duration, the role of insurance and poverty in abortion care, the patient-health care worker relationship and its effect on patient views toward vaccination during pregnancy, and health-seeking behaviors for infertility; aspects related to health care practitioners, including emotional burnout among maternity support workers, how clinicians make sense of structural barriers to diabetes care among US Latinos with limited English proficiency, and racial residential segregation and the distribution of auxiliary health care practitioners across urban space; and aspects related to racial and ethnic minorities, with discussion of issues of dual diagnosis among US adults, the hypertension experiences of black men, the influence of health care utilization and social characteristics on health outcomes among elderly Asian Americans, behavioral functioning among Mexican-origin children, race and ethnic differences in care-seeking, and demographics and female smoking.

Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld is Professor Emerita in the Sociology Program, Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University. Her research areas are medical sociology and aging and the life course with special focus on health policy, health care utilization and health behavior. She is coeditor of Health and Associate Editor In Chief, American Journal of Health Promotion. She has served in many roles with the American Sociological Association (ASA) including as Chair of the Medical Sociology Section and other positions in this group. She is a past President of Sociologists for Women in Society.