A Healthy Society, Updated and Expanded Edition
How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy
A Healthy Society draws on one doctor’s experience in family practice, community building, and politics to envision a new approach to politics – and a healthier world.
Description
A Healthy Society, Updated and Expanded Edition, is one doctor’s vision for a new approach to politics – and a new approach to building a healthier world. Drawing on his experiences as a family physician, Dr. Meili argues that health delivery too often focuses on treatment of immediate causes and ignores more fundamental conditions that lead to poor health. The social determinants of health – income, education, employment, housing, the wider environment, and social supports – have far more impact than the actions of health care providers.
This updated edition describes the positive steps that have been taken since the publication of the first edition. It includes expanded discussions of basic income, poverty reduction strategies, innovative housing polices, carbon pricing, and the role of health professionals in working for health equity, as well as new chapters on poverty, food security, and climate change. This book breaks important ground, showing us how a focus on health can change Canadian politics for the better.
Reviews
A Healthy Society now includes chapters on poverty, food security, and climate change. Thought-provoking and highly readable, it weaves together the vision of a young politician--Meili was elected leader of the Saskatchewan NDP in March 2018--and the advocacy of a good physician who has worked in rural and urban Saskatchewan and in Africa.
- Dr. Fiona Clement, director of the Health Technology Assessment Unit at the O'Brien Institute of Public Health, University of Calgary