“Ansell does a magnificent job of uncovering the myriad ways in which structural racism — in housing, employment, education, and health care, for a start — creates unacceptable ‘death gaps’ or disparities in life expectancy that are preventable and therefore morally unacceptable. This moving study delivers the harsh truth about the ways that racism infects our nation’s health care system, and it does so with passion and eloquence. One comes away from Death Gap feeling inspired to act, and that’s a rare and wonderful accomplishment.”
— Beryl Satter, author of Family Properties: How the Struggle over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America
“The Death Gap describes critical health inequalities in the United States, which are drawn from Ansell’s gripping first-person experiences as a leading practitioner operating in Chicago’s medical safety net. He reveals the profound inequalities, particularly racial inequalities, that generate tremendous differences in lifespan and well-being across neighborhoods, and he provides powerful patient anecdotes that provide a human face to otherwise abstract challenges.”
— Harold Pollack, University of Chicago
"Compelling. . . . Without providing easy answers, Ansell challenges readers to be aware of health disparities and to work toward equality."
— Christian Century
"This passionate polemic uses powerful patient stories to highlight the importance of neighbourhood conditions, healthcare inequalities and poverty in explaining the health gap between black and white Americans. Drawing on detailed case studies of racial inequalities in breast cancer mortality, the health consequences of mass imprisonment, immigration status and access to healthcare, the Chicago heatwave and Hurricane Katrina, Ansell vividly unpicks a spider’s web of causality. . . . This is a wide-ranging and very important book. Easy to read and engaging, it makes the social determinants come alive."
— Clare Bambra, Times Higher Education
"How race and class affect health is demonstrated by a single statistic: Black women are 40 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, though they develop it at the same rate... The Death Gap cites the three B’s – beliefs, behavior and biology – as the wrong explanations for health and life expectancy differences."
— Eve Ottenberg, Truthout
"...a valuable and challenging book for any audience."
— Association of Professional Chaplains