Communities in Action
Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

America’s Poorest and Most Affluent Counties, 1980 to 2010
America’s Poorest and Most Affluent Counties, 1980 to 2010

Author: Wendy Shaw

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-08-28

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 3030753409

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This book explores the changing spatial distribution of the United States of America's poorest and most affluent counties over the 30 years from 1980 to 2010. While overall rates of poverty have changed somewhat during this period, the geography of counties where affluence and poverty rates are the highest have also shifted as economic fortunes wax and wane. The spatial understanding of poverty and affluence is an important dimension of addressing the complex economic and social contexts within which poverty occurs, and which vary substantially depending on several factors. While there has been significant focus on poverty in the United States, including some analysis of its spatial characteristics, since the 1960s there has been relatively little research on the concomitant geography of affluence. The geographies of poverty and affluence analyzed in this book give a view of spatial economic segregation. Spatial aspects of both the poorest and most affluent counties are focused on, as well as the changing gap and relative geographies between rich and poor over three decades.