Search results for ""Author Kate Pickett""

Some groups of people are healthier than others. Overwhelmingly, for almost all kinds of morbidity and mortality, groups at the bottom of the social scale are less healthy than those at the top. But this simple observation describes a complex phenomenon that has become a major focus of research, teaching, intervention, and public policy and has led to recognition of the stark power of social determinants of population health. Why are poorer, less educated, lower-class groups less healthy than others? Historically, and indeed today, this has been a question that has polarized researchers, policy-makers, politicians, and casual onlookers. The debate is intensely contentious because if health inequalities are largely a consequence of people at the bottom of the social scale lacking resources and living in poor conditions, then, arguably, policies must be directed towards correcting those material deficits. But if inequalities in health are largely due to the social inequalitie

Read more less

The essential new book from the authors of the international bestseller The Spirit Level'Why are people, particularly young people, experiencing increasing levels of mental illness and distress? Highly readable and authoritative, The Inner Level shows clearly how social anxieties and the problems they lead to rise steadily in richer, more unequal societies' Clare Short, The Tablet, Books of the YearWhy is the incidence of mental illness in the UK twice that in Germany? Why are Americans three times more likely than the Dutch to develop gambling problems? Why is child well-being so much worse in New Zealand than Japan? As this groundbreaking study demonstrates, the answer to all these hinges on inequality.In The Spirit Level Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett put inequality at the centre of public debateby showing conclusively that less-equal societies fare worse than more equal ones across everythingfrom education to life expectancy. The Inner Level now explains how inequality affects us individually,how it alters how we think, feel and behave. It sets out the overwhelming evidence that materialinequalities have powerful psychological effects: when the gap between rich and poor increases, so does the tendency to defi ne and value ourselves and others in terms of superiority and inferiority. A deep well of data and analysis is drawn upon to empirically show, for example, that low social status is associated with elevated levels of stress, and how rates of anxiety and depression are intimately related to the inequality which makes that status paramount.Wilkinson and Pickett describe how these responses to hierarchies evolved, and why the impacts ofinequality on us are so severe. In doing so, they challenge the conception that humans are innatelycompetitive and self-interested. They undermine, too, the idea that inequality is the product of 'natural' differences in individual ability. This book sheds new light on many of the most urgent problems facing societies today, but it is not just an index of our ills. It demonstrates that societies based on fundamental equalities, sharing and reciprocity generate much higher levels of well-being, and lays out the path towards them.

Read more less

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone is the most influential and talked-about book on society in the last decade - now updated with a new chapter on the controversy the book has ignited. Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Australians? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show: How almost everything - from life expectancy to mental illness, violence to illiteracy - is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it isThat societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them - including the well-off How we can find positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world. 'A big idea, big enough to change political thinking' - Guardian 'A remarkable new book ... the implications are profound' - Will Hutton, Observer 'The evidence is hard to dispute' - EconomistRichard Wilkinson studied economic history at the London School of Economics before training in epidemiology and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School and Honorary Professor at University College London.Kate Pickett is a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York and a National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist. Her work with Richard Wilkinson on The Spirit Level was shortlisted for Research Project of the Year 2009 by the Times Higher Education Supplement, and their book was chosen as one of the Top Ten Books of the Decade by the New Statesman.

Read more less