Low Income, Social Growth, and Good Health
Subtitle: A History of Twelve Countries (California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of California Press; Milbank Memorial Fund
Published: October 9, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780520252868
Subjects: Public health & preventive medicine; Health Care Policy; Public Health (General); Medical; Medical / Nursing; Diseases; Health Care Delivery; Medical / General; Economic Conditions; Public Health; Case Reports; Case studies; Economic aspects; Income; Life Expectancy; ethnology
Description: This book studies the experience of twelve countries that have broken through the limits that low incomes so often impose on human survival: China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Oman, Panama, the former Soviet Union, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Most made impressive gains in life expectancy in the decades after 1920, and by 1960 nearly matched the rich countries in survival. Findings make clear that all of these countries enjoyed significant social growth, all invested in public health, and all gained the people's participation in the effort to improve their own lives and health. This innovative analysis suggests an alternative model of growth in which the measure of a nation's success is not its per capita income but the life expectancy of its population.