Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public`s Health, Stein Michael, Galea Sandro

Americans care about their health. Americans pay lots of money in hopes of maintaining their health. So why are Americans so unhealthy?

The reason is simple: as a country, the United States overinvests in medical care at the expense of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produce health. The rise of medicine as a cornerstone of American life and culture has coincided with a social and political devaluation of factors
demonstrated to mean more to our vitality than anything else -- influences like where we live, work, and play; livable wages that create opportunity for healthy living; and gender and racial equity.

In Pained, physicians Michael Stein and Sandro Galea push the conversation around American health where it belongs: toward matters of class, money, and culture. Across more than 50 essays and data illustrations, Pained casts a light on how the structural components of everyday life -- like school,
housing, police, even cell phones -- ultimately determine who gets to be healthy in todays America. In doing so, it makes a case for reframing our political discourse in less myopic, more effectual terms.