Toward a Healthier Garden State

Beyond Cancer Clusters and COVID

By Michael R. Greenberg and Dona Schneider

Rutgers University Press

While New Jersey now frequently appears near the top in listings of America’s healthiest states, this has not always been the case. The fluctuations in the state’s overall levels of health have less to do with the lifestyle choices of individual residents and more to do with broader structural issues, ranging from pollution to urban design to the consolidation of the health care industry.

This book uses the past fifty years of New Jersey history as a case study to illustrate just how much public policy decisions and other upstream factors can affect the health of a state’s citizens. It reveals how economic and racial disparities in health care were exacerbated by bad policies regarding everything from zoning to education to environmental regulation. The study further chronicles how New Jersey struggled to deal with public health crises like the AIDS epidemic and the crack epidemic. Yet it also explores how the state has developed some of the nation’s most innovative responses to public health challenges, and then provides policy suggestions for how we might build an even healthier New Jersey.

Toward a Healthier Garden State is a wonderful resource for decision makers and educators, and an entertaining read for everyone who loves the Garden State. This book should be required reading for all elected and appointed officials throughout the state–a truly unique read. Thomas A. Burke, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University

MICHAEL R. GREENBERG is a distinguished professor emeritus at the Bloustein School, Rutgers University, where he has served as both associate dean and dean. He has written more than thirty-five books and more than three hundred and fifty journal articles on the topics of environmental health and risk analysis and served as editor in chief of Risk Analysis.

DONA SCHNEIDER is a professor emeritus at the Bloustein School, Rutgers University. She has served as associate dean, and as dean of the University College Community. A medical geographer and epidemiologist, she has written nine books and over one hundred journal articles, while also editing several journals.

Preface

1 Defining, Measuring, and Improving Health

2 The Winding Path to Better Health in New Jersey

3 Transportation Drives Population Shifts

4 Fixing Environmental Inequities: Cancer Alley

5 Health Disparities and the COVID-19 Pandemic

6 Housing and Education Interventions

7 Acute Natural and Man-Made Hazard Events

8 Reshuffling Health Care

Epilogue: Confronting Challenges to a Healthier New Jersey—The Next 25 Years

Acknowledgments
Index

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