The Death Gap, David A. Ansell
The Death Gap, David A. Ansell
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The Death Gap
How Inequality Kills

Author: David A. Ansell

Narrator: Peter Berkrot

Unabridged: 7 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/23/2017


Synopsis

The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans.

David Ansell has spent nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, and has witnessed firsthand the lives behind these devastating statistics. In The Death Gap, he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients.

While the contrasts and disparities among Chicago's communities are particularly stark, the death gap is truly a nationwide epidemic—as Ansell shows, there is a thirty-five-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and wealthiest and the poorest and sickest American neighborhoods. If you are poor, where you live in America can dictate when you die. It doesn't need to be this way; such divisions are not inevitable.

Ansell calls out the social and cultural arguments that have been raised as ways of explaining or excusing these gaps, and he lays bare the structural violence that is really to blame. The Death Gap outlines a vision that will provide the foundation for a healthier nation—for all.

About David A. Ansell

David A. Ansell, MD, is a Chicago-based physician, social epidemiologist and author. His efforts at both the national and local levels have advanced concerns about health inequities and the structure of the US health care system. His years as a provider to the medically underserved have made him a vocal supporter of single-payer health care.

He spent seventeen years at Cook County Hospital currently known as John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County upon which the medical T.V. drama ER was based. Ansell was inspired by his time at Cook County Hospital to write a memoir and social history entitled, County: Life, Death, and Politics in Chicago's Public Hospital.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jess on May 31, 2018

I listened to this as an audiobook. Per usual, I don't like Peter Berkrot as a narrator. Something about his style always feels contrived, but that's beside the point. Nothing about this book comes as a surprise, though the numerical gaps cited are much larger than I anticipated. I would recommend i......more

Goodreads review by Merel on January 09, 2023

(3.5) ansell is a passionate and convincing advocate for healthcare inequities caused by structural violence. he draws on a myriad of studies to argue his point that structural violence leads to “death gaps”: the premature deaths of many ethnic and economic minorities due to their ethnicity, economi......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on May 31, 2019

This was an excellent little book, helping me to put health inequities in perspective. Ansell is an MD in Chicago, and he grounds his arguments with examples of what he has seen in Chicago neighborhoods he's worked in. So, this book is especially relevant for Chicago-area residents. His main thesis i......more

Goodreads review by Chuck on January 29, 2021

A scathing indictment of how our society has created an inequitable health care system. Written by a top physician, in accessible and passionate prose. Fascinating and fury producing.......more

Goodreads review by Fvandrog on April 25, 2018

Poor people die earlier than the middle class and the well off, because of a myriad of reasons. Many of those reasons are beyond their fault, or power to change. The author certainly focuses on those; what can society in general do battle health inequality, and in general, poverty. Ansell describes t......more