The most authoritative evidence-based approach to mental health policy and design. Rooted in research findings that support an evidence-based orientation to treatment and recovery, the sixth edition of Mental Health and Social Policy takes a multidisciplinary approach to mental health and social policy. It examines the nature, origins, distribution, and consequences of disorders, while detailing information on the services, programs, and social policies that have been developed to assist people with mental health problems. This text is available in a variety of formats - print and digital. Check your favorite digital provider for your etext, including Coursesmart, Kindle, Nook, and more. To learn more about our programs, pricing options and customization, click the Choices tab. Learning Goals Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: * Understand the nature, origins, distribution and consequences of mental disorders. * Examine the services, programs, and social policies developed to assist people with mental health problems. Note: MySearchLab with eText does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MySearchLab with eText, please visit: www.mysearchlab.com or you can purchase a ValuePack of the text + MySearchLab with eText: ValuePack ISBN-10: 0205922430 / ValuePack ISBN-13: 9780205922437

Additional Author George B. Strother. Edited By Harold J. Leavitt.

"This is health policy for grown-ups . . . Mechanic brings to bear his magisterial knowledge of some of the less-traveled pathways in the health care wilderness."-Health Affairs "A comprehensive and thoughtful discussion of the myriad reasons why substantial health care reform continues to be elusive . . . will be much appreciated by readers interested in increasing their understanding of the future of health care reform."-Journal of the American Medical Association "Mechanic, one of the longest abiding and most insightful observers of American health care, has diagnosed many of the system's ills."-Inquiry Drawing on decades of experience as an active health policy participant, researcher, teacher, and consultant to the public and private sectors, David Mechanic examines the strengths and weaknesses of health care in the United States. He explains how it has evolved in ways that favor economic, professional, and political interests over those of patients. Yet, he also acknowledges that railing against these influences can achieve only so much. Instead, Mechanic suggests changes that may make it possible to convert what is best about health care in America into a well-functioning system that better serves the entire population. David Mechanic is director of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University and the national program director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and to the Institute of Medicine.

In The White Plague, Rene and Jean Dubos argue that the great increase of tuberculosis was intimately connected with the rise of an industrial, urbanized society and--a much more controversial idea when this book first appeared forty years ago--that the progress of medical science had very little to do with the marked decline in tuberculosis in the twentieth century.The White Plague has long been regarded as a classic in the social and environmental history of disease. This reprint of the 1952 edition features new introductory writings by two distinguished practitioners of the sociology and history of medicine. David Mechanic's foreword describes the personal and intellectual experience that shaped Rene Dubos's view of tuberculosis. Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz's historical introduction reexamines The White Plague in light of recent work on the social history of tuberculosis. Her thought-provoking essay pays particular attention to the broader cultural and medical assumptions about sickness and sick people that inform a society's approach to the conquest of disease.