Sick Societies Responding to the global challenge of chronic disease

Chronic diseases-heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, and common cancers-claim more than one out of every two lives worldwide. Within the next few decades their toll will rise, most greatly in developing countries. Yet this rapid growth of chronic diseases is not being met with a proportionate global response. Left unaddressed, they pose a major threat to social and economic development. This book is the first to synthesize the growing evidence-base surrounding chronic disease, comprehensively addressing the prevention and control of chronic diseases from epidemiologic, economic, prevention/management, and political economy perspectives. Sick Societies is written in five main parts. The first three chapters explore the causes and consequences of chronic diseases on a global level. Chapter four identifi es different approaches to preventing and managing chronic diseases, while chapters five and six consider the power and politics in global health that have stymied an effective response to chronic disease. In chapter seven, the themes from the first three parts come into focus through a series of invited contributions from leading public health experts. The final chapter sets out a model of pragmatic and imaginative solidarity, wherein the struggles of the rich and poor to survive are united by a common cause and shared goals.

Preface: Epidemiology of modern society. 1. Evaluating the health burden of chronic diseases. 2. Sick individuals, sick populations: the societal determinants of chronic diseases. 3. Social and economic consequences of chronic diseases. 4. Comprehensive strategies to reduce the burden of chronic diseases. Part 1: Management of chronic disease. Part 2: Prevention of chronic diseases. 5. Politics of chronic disease. Part 1: Political economy of chronic disease. Part 2: Creating a social movement to raise the priority of global chronic disease. 6. Activities of the Private Sector. Part 1: The current and future role of the food industry in the prevention and control of chronic diseases: the case of PepsiCo. Part 2: The corporate play book, health, and democracy: the snack food and beverage industry's tactics in context. 7. Comparative case studies from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Part 1: Chronic diseases in Brazil. Part 2: Chronic diseases in China. Part 3: Chronic diseases in India. Part 4: Chronic diseases in Mexico. Part 5: Chronic diseases in South Africa. 8. Responding to the global challenge of sick societies. Appendix: Resources for Action.

David Stuckler, is a university lecturer in sociology at Cambridge University and research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Chatham House. He has written over 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the economics of global health in The Lancet, Nature, and Foreign Affairs in addition to other major journals. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, his MPH from Yale University and his PhD from Cambridge before becoming a Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology at Oxford and receiving an appointment as an assistant professor at Harvard. He has won grants from the World Health Organization and UNICEF on the political economy of healthcare, and from the European Centers for Disease Control on the impact of economic crises on public health. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford on the subjects of global politics, economics and health as well as quantitative methods. Karen Siegel, MPH, is a PhD student in Nutrition and Health Sciences and a Woodruff Scholar at Emory University's Laney Graduate School and Rollins School of Public Health. She has written articles on environmental and policy approaches to prevent chronic diseases in India and globally, as well as on diabetes advocacy issues and chronic disease curricula improvement, in Health Affairs, The Lancet, Globalization & Health, and Nursing Standard. Previously, she played a major role in the development of the Oxford Health Alliance's Community Interventions for Health as part of the study's evaluation team, based at Matrix Public Health Solutions, Inc. and later at Oxford University. Siegel received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her MPH from Yale School of Public Health. She is co-chair of the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network.

The book is a tour de force! Stuckler and Siegel's book expertly pulls together the essential data and ideas needed to combat chronic diseases. It will be a mandatory reader for courses in global health. It is the book Geoffrey Rose would have written if he were still around.