University Press of Mississippi The State of Health and Health Care in Mississippi

In this multidisciplinary book, the editor and contributors provide the most accurate and most recent information on health and health care in the State of Mississippi. They explain why the state finds itself in precarious health conditions and reveal the prevailing circumstances as the state debates a path toward a comprehensive health care system for its citizens. They show who has had access to good health care in the state and celebrate the heroes who struggled to provide health care to all Mississippians, and contribute to the debate on how the health care system might be restructured, reconstructed, or adjusted to meet the needs of all people in the state, regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and national origin.The issue of health disparities and socio-economic status leads to a relevant discussion of whether health and access to quality care are a right of all people, as the United Nations has proclaimed, or the privilege of a few who have the economic resources and the political clout to purchase first-rate care. The volume offers a clear understanding of health care trends in the state since the inception of its health system during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries up to the present and the prospects of transcending the obstacles of its own creation over the past two centuries. It likewise highlights the economic challenges that Mississippi, like other states, confronts; and how wise and realistic its priorities are in meeting the needs of its diverse populations, particularly racial and ethnic minorities. Review "Mario J. Azevedo skillfully directs the reader through the two sections of the book, the first devoted to health and health policy and the second to an analysis of where we are as a state in infectious disease, chronic disease, maternal and child health, and mental health, among others. The reasons to buy, read, and reread this book are the opportunities and innovations for change offered throughout the text. If you love Mississippi and Mississippians like I do, spend some time with this book. Maybe we can put our heads together to make health and health care better, right here, right now."--Dr. Rick deShazo, University of Mississippi Medical Center and host of Southern Remedy on Mississippi Public Broadcasting About the Author Mario J. Azevedo Ph.D., M.P.H., M.A., Pearl, Mississippi, former chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, former associate dean of the School of Health Sciences, and former dean of the College of Public Service is interim chair and professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Jackson State University.