Alan M. Kraut

An exploration of the "Double helix of Epidemiology and Immigration in the USA from 1900 to about 1925. Immigrant groups have often described as bringing "Disease" with them when they are recent arrivals from an identifiable ethnic groups. Kraut contrasts these linkages in the popular press and social attitudes with the actual figures and the methods of collecting those official figures. He comes to the conclusions that these ethnic linkages are quite weak when contrasted with the disease shown to be constant when the vectors are those quite clearly related to poor housing, social inequality, and economic penalization. Into the bargain, one gets information about the history of the growth of the apparatus for greater involvement in public health measures for the entire community in the period of 1880 to 1920 in American politics. Not vivid prose, but a readable text with valuable lessons for all concerned with the presence of xenophobia in the USA and Canada.… (altro)