Read these public health page-turners as summer burns: New books on occupational safety, immunizations, telemedicine, more

America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System Steven Brill, JD

From the headaches over the launch of the Healthcare.gov website to the deals lobbyists made in exchange for supporting the Affordable Care Act, Brill looks at challenges that have mounted since health reform was implemented in 2010. Brill pens a detailed account spanning patients, lobbyists, health insurance companies and more to point out how the law saved some Americans from financial ruin but created barriers for others seeking access to care.

Brill gained a new perspective on the health care insurance debate after undergoing heart surgery while writing the book and offers his view on what needs to be done to reform U.S. health care. The New York Times called Brill’s account “A superb guide to the maze of issues in American health care and health care reform.”

2015, Random House, 528 pages

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Atul Gawande, MD, MPH

Everyone dies. It is a fact of life that everyone must accept. But in Gawande’s latest book, he notes it’s the quality of the final years of life that health professionals and facilities, such as nursing homes, may miss the mark on. And in missing this mark, health workers and family members may cause more pain and suffering for seniors in the end.

A New York Times best-selling author, Gawande, a general surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, uses his own family’s experiences and stories from health professionals working in the geriatrics field to give insight on making the final years count.

2014, Metropolitan Books, 304 pages

The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age Robert Wachter, MD

Wachter, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco’s Department of Medicine, looks at the growing pains associated with the U.S. health care system’s transition to using health information technology. While technology may be seen as a way to increase access to care and improve health care delivery, Wachter shares stories about how that same technology can lead to errors that could jeopardize patient safety and reduce communication between hospital staff.

Weaving patient and health worker interviews with his institutional knowledge, Wachter calls on health care leaders and policymakers to make improvements that are a win-win for patients and health professionals.

2015, McGraw-Hill, 320 pages

Occupational Safety and Health Policy Melvin Myers, MPA

APHA member Myers, an adjunct associate professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, uses real-world examples of policy triumphs and setbacks in occupational health to stress the importance of workplace safety. Myers explores why safety should not be sacrificed for company profits and highlights what industries are succeeding at keeping workers healthy. He also stresses how small-scale accidents that hurt or kill workers but do not get media coverage should be looked at as hazards that can harm even more workers in the future.

2015, APHA Press, 787 pages

On Immunity: An Inoculation Eula Biss, MFA

Childhood immunization remains a hot public health topic and Biss confronts society’s fears about vaccinations as a new mother in this New York Times best-seller. Publishers Weekly called Biss’ exploration on this topic “historical and emotional” as she shares with readers her experiences talking with mothers who worried over the side effects of vaccination, as well as a background history on immunization and the myths that surround it. Biss looks at all sides of the issue to ultimately reason why vaccines are necessary to protect the public’s health.

2014, Graywolf Press, 216 pages

Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, MSc

Could the year 2025 mark the end of insurance companies in the U.S.? Could health care inflation end by 2020? Emanuel, a chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks so. A former special advisor to the White House on health care reform, Emanuel makes six predictions about the future of U.S. health care based on what Affordable Care Act reform has brought to Americans and what the law promises for the future. Emanuel looks at the background history of the U.S. health care system that prompted a need for reform, as well as the political turmoil that continues to surround the law since its inception in 2010.

2015, PublicAffairs, 400 pages

Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial Kenji Yoshino, JD, MSc

Yoshino, a chief justice Earl Warren professor of constitutional law at New York University, captures the emotions and complexities of the Hollingsworth v. Perry trial, a 2010 lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which denied same-sex couples in California the right to marry.

Yoshino, a married gay man with two children, intertwines his personal life with case details to show how important a role the trial plays in the fight for marriage equality and federal protections afforded to families like his.

2015, Crown Publishers, 384 pages

Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful Susan Ball, MD, MPH, MS

Thanks to advances in treatment and medicine, many people can manage HIV and AIDS as they do other chronic diseases. But as an HIV/AIDS doctor based in New York City in the 1990s, Ball traveled a long road to help reduce the stigmas associated with the disease decades ago.

Ball looks back on more than 20 years of her friendships with patients, frustrations over providing care and the early fears associated with HIV as she cared for patients at the Center for Special Studies in New York City. Drawing on her experiences, Ball, now an associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, shows how it takes a combination of support from government, medicine and others to tackle HIV and AIDS.

2015, ILR Press, 264 pages

To purchase “Occupational Safety and Health Policy” from APHA Press, visit www.aphabookstore.org.