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`The inter-relationships of health, illness and society are matters of intense and growing research and debate. Kevin White has performed an extraordinary service to anyone who would wish to understand or contribute to such debates. His dictionary is authoritative and comprehensive. It provides clear, confident and succinct summaries of key terms, concepts,debates and influential figures in the field of social aspects of health' - Ray Fitzpatrick, Professor of Public Health, University of Oxford. The field of health studies has grown enormously over the last 25 years. Yet surprisingly, until n

This article examines the development of general practice in the latter half of the 20th century, documenting the issues of concern to both the profession and the state. General practice developed hand in hand with the welfare state in Australia. As the structural changes associated with restructuring of the welfare state have advanced, so have the fortunes of general practice declined, despite significant attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to 'save' general practice by both the profession and the state. These structural changes have operated on two fronts, the economic and the cultural. On the economic, changes to the employment of general practitioners clearly indicate ongoing proletarianization, particularly in a changing environment of labor-capital relations. At the cultural level, development of the self-help and the women's movements and the elective affinity of these groups with the individualism of the new right are leading to deprofessionalization. The author advances this argument in a review of general practice over the last 40 years and in a case study of community health services. Theoretically he argues for a combination of the proletarianization and the deprofessionalization theses.

This article examines the development of general practice in the latter half of the 20th century, documenting the issues of concern to both the profession and the state. General practice developed hand in hand with the welfare state in Australia. As the structural changes associated with restructuring of the welfare state have advanced, so have the fortunes of general practice declined, despite significant attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to 'save' general practice by both the profession and the state. These structural changes have operated on two fronts, the economic and the cultural. On the economic, changes to the employment of general practitioners clearly indicate ongoing proletarianization, particularly in a changing environment of labor-capital relations. At the cultural level, development of the self-help and the women's movements and the elective affinity of these groups with the individualism of the new right are leading to deprofessionalization. The author advances this argument in a review of general practice over the last 40 years and in a case study of community health services. Theoretically he argues for a combination of the proletarianization and the deprofessionalization theses.

The advance of life expectancy within high‐income countries from 1955 to 1996 is well represented by a straight‐line trend. This explains more of the variance on average, and in 19 of 21 high‐income countries, than logged or unlogged age‐standardized death rates. Change in life expectancy in individual countries over this period was partially predicted by a country's level relative to the rest of this group of high‐income countries and partially by a country's own prior rate of advance, with substantial convergence toward the group mean for both measures.

Tuberculosis was the largest source of deaths among younger adults, and cardiovascular disease among older adults, in the America of 1900. Decreases in deaths from tuberculosis since 1900 and cardiovascular disease since 1940 explain most of the mortality drops in those age groups over the century. This article, building on previous work by White and Preston, shows the results of increased survival from these two causes on the US population structure. Standard demographic cause‐specific mortality calculations are used to generate life tables without deaths from cardiovascular disease or tuberculosis. Then fixed rates for these diseases from early in the century are assumed while all other causes of death are allowed to change as they did historically. Improvements in cardiovascular mortality and tuberculosis produce some seemingly illogical contrasts. More people are alive today because of the decrease in tuberculosis. Yet more deaths from cardiovascular disease have been prevented, and cardiovascular improvements have raised life expectancy more. Lower tuberculosis mortality had virtually no effect on the average age of the population. Lower cardiovascular mortality alone has raised that average more than all twentieth‐century causes of improved mortality combined.