This handbook provides a comprehensive and critical overview of the gamut of contemporary issues around health and healthcare from a political economy perspective. Its contributions present a unique challenge to prevailing economic accounts of health and healthcare, which narrowly focus on individual behaviour and market processes. Instead, the capacity of the human body to reach its full potential and the ability of society to prevent disease and cure illness are demonstrated to be shaped by a broader array of political economic processes. The material conditions in which societies produce, distribute, exchange, consume, and reproduce – and the operation of power relations therein – influence all elements of human health: from food consumption and workplace safety, to inequality, healthcare and housing, and even the biophysical conditions in which humans live. This volume explores these concerns across five sections. First, it introduces and critically engages with a variety of established and cutting-edge theoretical perspectives in political economy to conceptualise health and healthcare – from neoclassical and behavioural economics, to Marxist and feminist approaches. The next two sections extend these insights to evaluate the neoliberalisation of health and healthcare over the past 40 years, highlighting their individualisation and commodification by the capitalist state and powerful corporations. The fourth section examines the diverse manifestation of these dynamics across a range of geographical contexts. The volume concludes with a section devoted to outlining more progressive health and healthcare arrangements, which transcend the limitations of both neoliberalism and capitalism. This volume will be an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of political economy, health policy and politics, health economics, health geography, the sociology of health, and other health-related disciplines. Chapters 1 & 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [CC BY NC ND] 4.0 license.

Have the countries' internal boundaries played a role in the response to the Covid-19 epidemic? What does the coronavirus crisis tell us about the sometimes strained relationship between national and regional/federal governments? This collective loock at the short- and medium term impact of the COVID-19 crisis on relations between central and regional governments.

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease that gripped Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone through much of 2014 and 2015 was undoubtedly a health emergency, yet it was also a global political event. This book examines the international politics of the Ebola outbreak in all of its dimensions, critically assessing the global response, examining what the outbreak can tell us about contemporary global health governance, and examining the inequalities and injustices that were laid bare. In doing so, the book shows how some of the concepts, debates and findings from the growing field of global health research in International Relations can help both in furthering understanding of the Ebola crisis and also in improving policy responses to future infectious disease outbreaks. This book was originally published as a special edition of Third World Quarterly.

Preparedness and rigorous planning on community, state, and regional levels are critical to containing the threat of pandemic illness. Steeped in research and recommendations from lessons learned, Pandemic Planning describes the processes necessary for the efficient and effective preparation, prevention, response, and recovery from a pandemic threa