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Building on our reputation for publishing high quality student textbooks, and cutting-edge work by leading authors, we are pleased to announce a major new list of titles in health and social care. These are suitable for use by students of nursing, midwifery, medicine and all the allied health professions.
Following in the Polity tradition, the books will not only present a critical approach, but will also provide exceptionally engaging introductions to the core themes in each area.
Denny and Earle: Sociology for Nurses 2nd Edition
"This new edition continues to have an accessible style much needed by those students of health care new to sociology. The selected topics are tackled from a practitioner’s perspective, with questions at the end of each chapter to help explore and apply the material in more detail. A new chapter tackling the impact of globalization is welcomed. This is an ideal textbook for students of all branches of nursing and midwifery, particularly in the early years, or for those revisiting the underpinning disciplines supporting nursing practice. A relevant, enjoyable read supported by good references and recommendations for further reading."
Jane Alderton, University of Brighton
Hammick, Freeth, Goodsman and Copperman: Being Interprofessional
Working interprofessionally is an essential part of successful twenty-first-century care provision. This engaging, easy-to-follow text highlights the need for collaboration between practitioners from all branches of health and social care: an indispensable guide to working better together that shows what being interprofessional really means.
Blaxter: Health 2nd Edition
The second edition of Mildred Blaxter's highly respected book offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the key debates surrounding the concept of health today. It will be is an invaluable textbook for students of medicine and other health professions as well as those studying sociology, health sciences and health promotion.
Barnes and Mercer: Exploring Disability 2nd Edition
"If students and teachers want one resource to assist in their exploration of disability studies, then this is it. It’s up-to-date, comprehensive and coherent, outlining the key themes and issues in a readable way. No-one studying disability on an undergraduate, postgraduate or professional training course should be without it."
Mike Oliver, Emeritus Professor, University of Greenwich
Hubley and Copeman: Practical Health Promotion
Highly commended in the BMA Awards 'Public Health' category
"This book brings together, in a very clear and accessible form, the theory and practice of health promotion. It demystifies the subject and brings it within the reach of everybody. This is one of the best books of its kind currently available, and I would heartily recommend it to students."
Anne Charlton, University of Manchester
Nettleton: Sociology of Health and Illness 2nd Edition
"Sarah Nettleton’s Sociology of Health and Illness has become a major text for students studying medical sociology. This second edition is a welcome event ... Its up-to-date treatment of changes in research and health care is essential reading for those attempting to understand matters medical in today’s fast changing environment."
Mike Bury, University of London
Payne: The Health of Men and Women
"This book clearly reviews similarities and differences in women and men’s physical and mental health as shaped by both gender and sex-linked biology, and also varying by outcome and by age, class, race/ethnicity, sexuality and global region. Refreshingly resisting misleading simplifications, Sarah Payne encourages critical thinking about gender, biology and population health."
Nancy Krieger, Harvard School of Public Health
Bury: Health and Illness
"Written in an engaging and accessible style, Health and Illness is outstanding, carefully addressing key classic and contemporary debates within the sociology of health and illness, and illustrating these with the most up-to-date research."
Sara Arber, University of Surrey
Bartley: Health Inequality
"This book makes an original and major contribution to the body of knowledge on the complex theories of inequalities in health. It is well written and explained in simple terms that encourage the reader to evaluate the original research for themselves."
Australian Social Work
Leach: Child Care Today
"Venerable British child psychologist Leach, author of the classic Your Baby and Child, addresses the overarching question of who is caring for today’s children. Until we embrace children as everyone’s responsibility, Leach insists, the 'working/caring conundrum' will continue to plague parents, and society will forgo the high dividends that result when an investment is made in quality child care."
Starred review in Publishers Weekly
Bendelow: Health, Emotion and the Body
Health, Emotion and the Body combines clarity of expression with careful scholarship and originality, making it appeal to students and scholars with a wide range of interests, including the sociology of health and illness, the body, and mental illness, as well as health psychology.
G. Cockerham and W. Cockerham: Health and Globalization
This accessible book examines the multidimensional influence of globalization on human health and disease. Globalization has had numerous far-reaching impacts on health-related issues, both social and political, and as this book shows, continues to present both positive and negative implications for the state of human health.
Cockerham: Social Causes of Health & Disease
"Social Causes of Health and Disease will be an extremely useful tool for teachers of medical sociology and others looking for an introduction to the subject that is both scholarly and accessible. Particularly noteworthy and exciting is Cockerham’s health lifestyles model, with his square focus on socioeconomic conditions and other social factors as causes of human health and illness, and his cutting-edge treatment of the interplay of structure and agency in this process. Also extremely valuable is his thoughtful placement of medical sociology in the history of American and British sociology."
Jo C. Phelan, Columbia University
Phillips: Care
"Phillips's book takes a fresh look at the much debated and researched concept of care. The author not only reviews current thinking on the subject and what has shaped that thinking but also provides some interesting new perspectives, illustrated through a range of real life situations and case studies. This is a very useful guide to a complex and much discussed topic. It will be an important resource for students and teachers who are looking for new ways forward on the subject of care."
Julia Johnson, Open University
Barnes and Mercer: Disability
"This book is essential reading for all disability studies scholars. It is historically well-grounded and theoretically rigorous, carefully exploring theories of disability, impairment and the body. The nature of the social oppression experienced by disabled people is analysed, and disability is located in relation to gender, 'race' and social class. Like all good sociology, the book is highly accessible and an excellent read."
Sheila Riddell, University of Glasgow
