Description
Book SynopsisAs a public health field worker assigned to control tuberculosis in New York and Chicago in the 1990s, Paul Draus encountered the horrible effects of tuberculosis resurgence in urban areas, and the intersections of disease, blight, and poverty. Consumed in the City grows out of his experiences and offers a persuasive case for thinking aboutand treatingtuberculosis as an inseparable component of the scourges of poverty, homelessness, AIDS, and drug abuse. It is impossible, Draus argues, to treat and eliminate tuberculosis without also treating the social ills that underlie the new epidemic.
Paul Draus begins by describing his own on-the-job training as a field worker, then places the resurgence of tuberculosis into historical and sociological perspective. He vividly describes his experiences in hospital rooms, clinics, jails, housing projects, urban streets, and other social settings where tuberculosis is often encountered and treated. Using case studies, he demonstrates how social problems affect the success or failure of actual treatment. Finally, Draus suggests how a reformed public health agenda could help institute the changes required to defeat a deadly new epidemic.
At once a personal account and a concrete plan for rethinking the role of public health, Consumed in the City marks a significant intervention in the way we think about the entangled crises of urban dislocation, poverty, and disease. Author note:
Paul Draus is a research scientist at the Center for Interventions, Treatment and Addictions Research in the Department of Community Health at the Wright State University School of Medicine.
Trade Review"Consumed in the City provides revealing insight into the world of social epidemiology related to tuberculosis control in major metropolitan areas of the United States at the close of the 20th century. Challenging our stereotypes about 'difficult' and 'non-compliant' patients, this engrossing book reveals much about the real character and milieu of life and treatment for patients caught up in poverty, homelessness, addictions to alcohol or drugs, and discrimination." JAMA "Draus makes a strong case for bringing ethnography into the practice of medicine to transform patients' histories from narratives shaped by existing medical categories to representations of life as lived by patients. This is an important book that will be valuable for health care professionals. Recommended." Choice "Consumed in the City offers a riveting and haunting view of the social havoc wreaked by TB in contemporary America. Drawing from his experience as a public health outreach worker, Paul Draus demonstrates that this preventable and treatable condition will remain a major killer if the ingrained inequalities of inner-city segregation, addiction, and poverty remain unaddressed." --Stefan Timmermans, Associate Professor, Brandeis University, and author of Sudden Death and the Myth of CPR and The Gold Standard: The Challenge of Evidence-Based Medicine and Standardization in Health Care
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue: A Day in the Life, Chicago, 1998 Introduction: TB and Sociology 1. Bugs in the Big Apple: Chasing TB in NYC 2. Slow Motion Disaster: Postindustrial Poverty and the Return of TB 3. The Public Hospital: Battles on the TB Frontier 4. Cavities of Contagion: Networks and Nodes of TB in Chicago 5. Welcome to the West Side: Hanging Out in TB Alley 6. Hard Case Histories: Narratives of Tuberculosis, Homelessness, and Addiction 7. Dif.cult Negotiations: Coercion, Care, and Compliance in TB Therapy 8. Sheep's Clothing: Lessons Learned from TB in the Field Conclusion: Implications of a Marginal Epidemic Epilogue: Back on the Corner, Chicago, 2002 Notes Works Cited Index
