Me vs. Us: A Health Divided

How can we care so much about health care yet so little about public health?Before Covid-19, public health programs constituted only 2.5 percent of all US health spending, with the other 97.5 percent going towards the larger health care system. In fact, the United States spends on average $11,000 per citizen per year on health care, but only $286 per person on public health. It seems that Americans value health care, the medical care of individuals, over public health, the well-being of collections of people.In Me vs. Us, primary care doctor and public health advocate Michael Stein takes a hard, insightful look at the larger questions behind American health and health care. He offers eight reasons why our interest in the technologies and delivery of health care supersedes our interest in public health and its focus on the core social, economic, and environmental forces that shape health. Stein documents how public health has continually "lost out" to medicine--from a loss in funding and resources to how we view our personal priorities--and suggests how public health may hold the solutions to our most concerning crises, from pandemics to obesity to climate change.Me vs. Us concludes that individual and public health are inseparable. In the end, Stein argues, we need to recover and sharpen our sense of health based on a reverent appreciation of both perspectives.

Table of Contents:
Introduction With Health, as in the rest of life, we think in terms of Me not Us PART 1 Chapter 1 We are not sure what public health is Chapter 2 If public health work is preventive, it's invisible, and becomes visible only during crises Chapter 3 We are not sure who public health is for Chapter 4 There is little private money to be made in public health Chapter 5 Public health frames its successes incorrectly Chapter 6 Public health can only infrequently perform randomized trials and therefore seems less rigorous Chatper 7 Public health is thought of as government work, primarily for the sake of the poor Chapter 8 Public health is missing health care's personal stories PART 2: HEALTH INDIVISIBLE

About the Author :
Michael D. Stein, MD, a primary care physician and researcher, has been writing about medicine and public health for decades. He is Professor and Chair of Health Law, Policy, and Management at Boston University School of Public Health. Stein graduated from Harvard College and received his medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Stein has published more than 400 scientific journal articles related to behavioral medicine and risk-taking, and is the best-selling author of ten books, including The Addict: One Patient, One Doctor, One Year, Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about The Public's Health, and Broke: Patients Talk about Money with Their Doctor.

Review :
Stein brilliantly interrogates the tension between individual health and the health of the population. He offers a critically important approach for creating a new partnership between the health care and public health systems. This is a daring and original work for our divided times. In Me vs. Us, Michael Stein persuasively makes the case that improving health in America requires not just a 'Me' (medical care and personal responsibility) perspective but importantly also an 'Us' (public health and policy, systems, and environmental change) perspective. His message is significant and timely for policymakers and the public. Me vs. Us is the right book for this time in our nation as we grapple with the challenge of transforming our collective ethos and mindset concerning health. Dr. Stein's research is impeccable, yet highly accessible. Every chapter builds an irrefutable case for moving from our current 'me'-centered medical treatment paradigm to an 'us'-centered public health approach to policies that expand opportunities for health and well-being. Dr. Stein has bravely stepped into this teachable post-pandemic moment to offer enduring and urgently needed insights. This book is a must-read for policymakers and the voters that elect them. Michael Stein has written a brilliant and important book. His view of health takes a wider lens that includes poverty, social support, and environment to look at factors that drive the need for health care. At a time when health disparities have become more evident, health costs more burdensome, and health care more technical, this book points us towards a different approach based on community, on 'us.' Me vs. Us should be required reading for anyone trying to understand how a nation that spends so much on health care fails to deliver on health.