APB’s Daniel E. Dawes’s Book Makes Stat's 2021 Summer Reading List
27 Jul 2021
APB speaker Daniel E. Dawes’ latest book has been named one of “The 36 Books and Podcasts on Health and Science to Check Out This Summer.” The Political Determinants of Health (Johns Hopkins University Press) was selected by Stat, a news site focused on health, medicine and scientific discovery. The site is produced by Boston Globe Media.
In the book, Dawes argues that political determinants of health create the social drivers—including poor environmental conditions, inadequate transportation, unsafe neighborhoods and lack of healthy food options—that affect all other dynamics of health. By understanding these determinants, their origins, and their impact on the equitable distribution of opportunities and resources, we will be better equipped to develop and implement actionable solutions to close the health gap, Dawes writes.
Dawes’ book was recommended to Stat by Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and Vice Dean for Population Health and Health Equity, UCSF School of Medicine.
The Political Determinants of Health, along with Dawes’ 2016 book, 150 Years of Obamacare, has received critical acclaim and endorsements from a bipartisan group of leaders, including Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, U.S. Secretaries of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Louis Sullivan, Deputy Assistant Secretary Garth Graham, as well as Surgeons General David Satcher and Regina Benjamin.
“This book reframes the conversation around America's unequal health outcomes,” Benjamin says. “It sheds light on why the current state of the nation's health did not happen by chance, but on purpose. It will force you to rethink the role social, environmental, economic and other factors play in influencing how long we will live.”
Dawes is a nationally respected healthcare and public health leader, policy expert, administrator and author who has been at the forefront of recent major federal health policy negotiations in the United States. He is the Executive Director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine.