Review by Choice Review
The American health care system's orientation toward the management of disease through the use of technology introduces cost and access problems that numerous reform efforts have failed to correct. Heirich (sociology, Univ. of Michigan at Ann Arbor) discusses why such efforts will continue to falter until focus shifts toward prevention, health promotion, and a systematic integration of the mental, social, and environmental factors that affect biochemical processes. Fortunately, over the past 50 years developments in scientific research and in national and international economies have introduced new options that are both consistent with the needed shifts and politically viable. The author outlines several health care cost-containment and access-increasing strategies based on these new developments. This work offers little new in the way of actual facts or analytical approach, but it does provide a comprehensive review of the causes and costs of current health delivery problems and the strengths and weakness of various reform strategies. The text tends to be "dry" and to repeat basic points. Tables; footnotes grouped at end; excellent references. For upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. J. M. Glasgow; emeritus, University of Connecticut Health Center
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
