Day: November 14, 2016

Understanding Financial Toxicity

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By Zack Buck

In the ongoing fight to control the cost of health care, new understanding of the phenomenon of financial toxicity could play a vital role.  Seen currently in the long-term cancer context, recent studies (here and here, and discussed here and here) have shown that individuals experiencing financial distress as a result of the cost of their care experience higher rates of mortality than those who do not.

In a forthcoming article in the Boston College Law Review (draft here), I make the argument that, following these groundbreaking studies, a new understanding of financial toxicity could transform clinical decision-making.  Indeed, a doctor’s examination of the impact of cost on the patient before deciding to rely on an expensive drug (particularly where a cheaper clinical equivalent exists) could serve as an important tool in limiting the worst effects of expensive care.  And treating cost as a negative side effect (like any other negative side effect) may allow for an explicit awareness and consideration of cost—something too often missing from health care decision-making today.

Health Equity in Housing Book Club: “Knocking on the Door”

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research 1 Comment

Q&A with Christopher Bonastia, PhD

This is the first in a series of posts we will share during our research for our housing equity project. Have a suggestion for what we should read next? Let us know.

In his 2006 book, Knocking on the Door: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Desegregate the Suburbs, Christopher Bonastia, PhD, reviews the federal government’s role in perpetuating residential segregation in the United States, and its fleeting attempts to desegregate the nation’s neighborhoods.

Dr. Bonastia discusses the active role federal agencies and courts have played in creating and perpetuating residential segregation. He points to the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, the Veterans Administration, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development as significant players in segregation and desegregation.

Understanding the roots of segregation and policy attempts to desegregate is key to understanding housing as a social determinant of health. Empirical research has shown associations between black-white segregation and an increased black infant mortality rate, elevated rates of black mortality, black homicide rates, and other negative individual and public health outcomes. Addressing racial residential segregation is imperative when attempting to improve any of those health outcomes.

Christopher Bonastia is professor of sociology at Lehman College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, as well as associate director of the Lehman Scholars Program and Macaulay Honors College at Lehman. He is the author of Southern Stalemate: Five Years without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia as well as Knocking on the Door: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Desegregate the Suburbs.

Our team read Knocking on the Door during our initial research period on housing, health equity and legal levers. Continue reading below for our interview with Dr. Bonastia about this book and ongoing research in this area.

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