The last half of the 20th century witnessed explosive growth in science and technology in the developed world, including extraordinary developments in medicine. As medicine′s capacity and complexity has grown, so has the popular sense that health care is a right and that the political system should deliver the care. Today, political systems grapple with every imaginable facet of health and health care. Although many of these questions seem economic in nature, they are inescapably political questions regarding the authoritative allocation of resources in response to the contention of values and ideas.
This major reference collection shines a bright light on health politics. The editors have organized and introduced some of the best of the canon of health politics literature in four volumes covering political analysis of the emergence and shape of health systems, public perceptions of government′s responsibility to assure the delivery of care, health care in a comparative perspective, and the politics of health reform.
Volume 1: Defining Health Systems - Path Dependence and Policy Emergence
Volume 2: Tensions in Health Policy - Ethics, Interests, and the Public
Volume 3: Health Systems in Comparative Perspective
Volume 4: the Contemporary Politics of Health System Reform
Sue Tolleson-Rinehart, PhD is the Assistant Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Pediatrics in School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Co-Associate Director of the MD-Master of Public Health joint degree program of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and the UNC School of Medicine. She is an adjunct member of the UNC Political Science Department. A political scientist who built a national reputation in gender politics scholarship before adding health politics and policy to her teaching and research interests, she has authored, co-authored, or edited three books and numerous articles in gender politics, including publications on the politics and policy of women′s health. She has been the co-Principal Investigator of the UNC Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics funded by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy Research, and the Principal Investigator of PEDS: Pediatric Education for Drug Safety, a grant awarded by the Attorneys General Prescriber and Consumer Education Program. In 2008, she was elected a Fellow of the UNC School of Medicine Academy of Educators. She led the effort to create the Organized Section in Health Politics and Policy of the American Political Science Association (APSA), the first time the field of health politics has had an official research section within the Association. She was the Section′s first Program Chair at the 2009 APSA Annual Meeting, and has recently concluded a term as Section President.
Mark A. Peterson is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, and former Chair of the Department of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA he is a Faculty Associate of the Center for Health Policy Research and the Center for Society & Genetics;, Co-Director of the Policy Core for the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services;, and on the faculty boards of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy. From 1993 to 2002, he was the Editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. He chairs the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Scholars in Health Policy Research Program and serves on the national advisory committees for three additional RWJF programs. His scholarship focuses on interactions among the Presidency, Congress, and interest groups, evaluating their implications for policy making, both within the general domain of domestic policy and with special attention to health care policy. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Council of the American Political Science Association, and as President of the Association′s Public Policy Section.
