This book examines ways in which cancer health disparities exist due to class and context inequities even in the most advanced society of the world. This volume, while articulating health disparities in the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area, including East St. Louis, Illinois, seeks to move beyond deficit models to focus on health equity. As cancer disparities continue to persist for low-income and women of color, the promotion and attainment of health equity becomes a matter of paramount importance. The volume demonstrates the importance of place and the historical inequity in socio-environmental settings that have contributed to marked health disparities. Through original research, this volume demonstrates that addressing the causes and contributors to women's health disparities is a complex process that requires intervention from a socio-ecological framework, at micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of influence. The book highlights critical aspects of a practical multidimensional model of community engagement with important influences of the various levels of research, policy and practice. More pointedly, the authors support a new model of community engagement that focuses on individuals in their broader ecological context. In so doing, they seek to advance the art and science of community engagement and collaboration, while disavowing the 'parachute' model of research, policy and practice that reinforces and sustains the problems associated with the status quo. The book concludes with broader national policy considerations in the face of the erosion of the social safety net for America's citizenry.
About the Author: Anjanette Wells is assistant professor in the School of Social Work, College of Allied Health Sciences, at the University of Cincinnati. Vetta L. Sanders Thompson is E. Desmond Lee professor of racial and ethnic diversity at Washington University in St. Louis. Will Ross is associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Washington University School of Medicine and professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology. Carol Camp Yeakey is Marshall S. Snow professor of arts & sciences and founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies and the Center on Urban Research and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis. Sheri Notaro is associate dean for graduate student affairs in the Graduate School and director of the Chancellor's Graduate Fellowship Program at Washington University in St. Louis.