Empower patients with culture-specific strategies for promoting health, treating disease, and preventing violence!Current reports show that Black Americans have the highest death rate of all racial and ethnic groups. They suffer disproportionately from a number of fatal diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, and certain cancers. Moreover, violence takes far too high a toll, especially among young Black men. Clearly a different approach to health education and promotion is needed to end this tragic waste of valuable human lives. Health Care in the Black Community: Empowerment, Knowledge, Skills, and Collectivism proposes an innovative model for health professionals working in the Black community.Traditional Western medicine focuses on sickness, the isolated individual, and the material world. However, the Afrocentric values of many Black people emphasize wellness, the community, and the spiritual world. By basing health care approaches on the community's positive values of holistic healing and mutual assistance, Health Care in the Black Community suggests practical, effective strategies for promoting physical and emotional wellness. This comprehensive and informative book offers a solid intellectual framework as well as practical advice. Health Care in the Black Community: identifies deeply held African-American cultural traditions and attitudes offers specific suggestions for combining health care priorities with respect for cultural concerns shows how to gain compliance by involving patients in their own care and drawing on community strengths discusses the impact of specific problems such as low self-esteem, infertility, HIV/AIDS, and violence on Black families develops strategies for preventing family violence by helping family members define and identify emotions shares programs and ideas for enhancing the physical and mental health of elderly Black people identifies ways to overcome the drawbacks of early parenthood Health Care in the Black Community offers health care professionals-- policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and educators in the fields of social work, health care, and cultural studies--successful methods, models, and suggestions to help improve health care in Black communities.

Edith M. Freeman's Substance Abuse Treatment is long overdue and warmly welcomed. . . . The book offers a refreshing examination of both life cycle and multicultural aspects of substance abuse treatment, all cast within the family systems framework. . . . This book should go a long way in guiding social workers and other professionals who are increasingly dealing with substance abusing clients toward integrating family and family systems into their practice with this population. --Bradley Googins in Social Work in Health Care "Attention to diversity issues enriches the variety of family structures, functions, and forms that are considered. Each chapter also contains helpful case examples and specific recommendations for practitioners. A person-in-environment approach is consistently maintained, and a strengths perspective is endorsed--a helpful antidote to the usual addiction material that emphasizes individual deficits and sanctions in the medical model. . . . The book would be valuable as a text in a course on family interventions or as a supplementary text in courses on practice and addictions." --Rita Rhodes in Families in Society Edith M. Freeman's pioneering effort utilizes a family systems perspective as a framework for understanding, treating, and preventing substance abuse. Without minimizing the importance of the biological, social, or psychological theoretical explanations of substance abuse, Substance Abuse Treatment explores the myriad variables that are needed to provide a richer explanation of any phenomenon pertaining to substance abuse. Such topics as treating substance abuse across the life span, multicultural approaches, and co-dependency are discussed in detail. Each chapter includes a case study or vignette that highlights individual and family life cycle issues relevant to substance abuse treatment. Written by an outstanding blend of practitioners and educators, this thoughtful, challenging, scholarly but practical collection of articles is a major contribution to the substance abuse and family therapy fields. "Freeman has assembled an impressive array of contributors in a volume that contains theory, practice, and research in family systems approaches to substance abuse. . . . The book includes practical information, suing a person-in-environment focus that is applicable to research and practice. It is a valuable addition for all who work with substance abuse problems." --The American Journal of Family Therapy