Well: What We Need to Talk About When We Talk About Health

"A deeply affecting work from one of the important and innovative voices in American health and medicine." -- Arianna Huffington In Well, physician Sandro Galea examines what Americans miss when they fixate on healthcare: health. Americans spend more money on health than people anywhere else in the world. And what do they get for it? Statistically, not much. Americans today live shorter, less healthy lives than citizens of other rich countries, and these trends show no signs of letting up.The problem, Sandro Galea argues, is that Americans focus on the wrong things when they think about health. Our national understanding of what constitutes "being well" is centered on medicine -- the lifestyles we adopt to stay healthy, and the insurance plans and prescriptions we fall back on when we're not. While all these things are important, they've not proven to be the difference between healthy and unhealthy on the large scale. Well is a radical examination of the subtle and not-so-subtle factors that determine who gets to be healthy in America. Galea shows how the country's failing health is a product of American history and character -- and how refocusing on our national health can usher enlightenment across American life and politics.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1: Past Chapter 2: Money Chapter 3: Power Chapter 4: Politics Chapter 5: Place Chapter 6: People Chapter 7: Love and Hate Chapter 8: Compassion Chapter 9: Knowledge Chapter 10: Humility Chapter 11: Freedom Chapter 12: Choice Chapter 13: Luck Chapter 14: The Many Chapter 15: The Few Chapter 16: The Public Good Chapter 17: Fairness and Justice Chapter 18: Pain and Pleasure Chapter 19: Death Chapter 20: Values

About the Author :
Sandro Galea is Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. He has been named an "epidemiology innovator" by Time and one of the "World's Most Influential Scientific Minds" by Thomson Reuters. A native of Malta, he has served as a field physician for Doctors Without Borders and held academic positions at Columbia University, University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine. At the time of his current appointment, he was the youngest dean of a school of public health in the United States.

Review :
"With Galea's narrative storytelling ... our national public health crisis feels fresh, raw, and urgent." -- Emily F. Peters, Health Affairs "A deeply affecting work from one of the important and innovative voices in American health and medicine. Well shows how healthcare and society are reflections of one another -- and how central human qualities like empathy and compassion must be if both are going to thrive." -- Arianna Huffington, Founder of HuffPost and Founder & CEO of Thrive Global "For 45 years I have fought for equity, compassion, and inclusion in mental health, so I am thrilled to see Sandro Galea's Well take the revolutionary and compelling stance that these principles can have a more beneficial effect upon public health than any scientific discovery." -- Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady "A radical new perspective on the true drivers of health -- and a set of truly disruptive conclusions to inspire those designing health systems. A defining manifesto for the years ahead." -- Arnaud Bernaert, World Economic Forum "An elegant, jarring examination of the public's health in America-which for all of its flaws remains the source of our greatest hope for the future." -- Karen DeSalvo, former Acting Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "A superb account of how money, power, politics, and the luck of the draw affect the health of individuals and populations. It should inspire all of us to follow Galea in championing public health as an essential public good, and in treasuring and preserving the core values of public-health fairness, justice, and compassion for all." -- Marion Nestle, author of Unsavory Truth "The passionate argument we need for the health we deserve. What an important frame for the right to health!" -- Leana Wen, President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America Agency "With healthcare increasingly a political football, Well guides us toward what is truly needed for a healthier world. Its power comes from Galea's remarkable ability to draw on the power of individual stories and lived experience to humanize the issues and inspire commitment to improved health for all." -- Margaret Hamburg, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner "A compassionate, relevant book." -- Kirkus "[Well] tells the tale of our individual and collective health's present and future as fluidly and eloquently as would any master storyteller... Galea's book is like a meditation on what can make for a healthier world. He is uniquely gifted to give us this broader prescription for our lives and those of our children and grandchildren. His is a message of hope, and we should listen."--The Lancet "Cogently and often movingly, epidemiologist Sandro Galea argues that an obsession with drugs, doctors and insurance obscures the fact that the roots of sickness and health are life circumstances: money, status, education, environment and a range of other socio-economic issues. With the richest 1% living for up to 15 years longer than the poorest 1%, investment in public goods such as education, universal health coverage and environmental regulation is ever more urgent."--Nature "Sandro Galea gives a revolutionary perspective on the state of public health in the United States and tells us how it can be fixed... Every American particularly policy-makers must read Well."--Washington Book Review "An impeccably researched, well-reasoned look at a complex topic."--olumbia Magazine