This book concerns the importance of achieving health equity throughout the United States. Its publication is timely, given the major challenges in American health care in recent years. These include reductions in health care coverage, the loss of funding to tackle social determinants of health, and the growing risks associated with climate change. The abundant data that document health inequities in housing, education, incarceration, income, opportunity, and so much else in the United States reveal the extent of the health-based challenges the nation faces as a whole. With these issues in mind, this book tackles a variety of topics centered on a “Culture of Health,” and includes contributions from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) Sharing Knowledge to Build a Culture of Health conferences. The first part of this volume concerns the assets intrinsic to cultural identity and the contribution to the nation's well-being that this diversity brings. Next, the book calls attention to the places where people spend much of their time and shows how each setting has the power to generate health, or to undermine it. Finally, this book closes with a section on a broad range of interconnected topics that have drawn considerable attention from many fields and brought new perspectives to the table.
Characteristics of Persons With and Without Health Care Coverage: United States, 1989
