Assignment task: Reading Guide for The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills by David Ansell
PURPOSE:
The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills, by David Ansell. It requires that you read all assigned portions of the book
Part I: Overall impressions:
1. What did you find most interesting in the book? What did you learn that helped to change your understanding of the social world? Was there anything that surprised you?
Part II: Consider the following questions, and critically and thoroughly answer 2-3 of them:
1. Is life expectancy a good measure of the overall health for a region or specific demographic?
What are the advantages of using that measure? What might be overlooked?
2. In what ways does the current way of talking about health in America obscure the ways health is impacted by structural violence?
3. Ansell clearly has a deep concern for social justice. Should medical professionals be outspoken about issues of structural violence? Why or why not?
4. One way that structural violence continues to negatively impact health is through the racial bias and empathy gaps in medical practitioners themselves. How can hospitals, clinics, and medical schools address these issues?
5. How is redlining related to health?
6. In what ways might Ansell's book inform how we practice healthcare in America? Where do the biggest changes need to be made? (e.g. Policy/insurance? Clinical/hospital care? Public health programs?