BiblioVault - Books by Pollack, Harold

Combating Teen Smoking

Research and Policy Strategies

Peter D. Jacobson, Paula M. Lantz, Kenneth E. Warner, Jeffrey Wasserman, Harold A. Pollack, and Alexis K. Ahlstrom

University of Michigan Press, 2001

Every year, more than 400,000 Americans die prematurely because of tobacco use. Most began smoking during their teen years. Adolescent tobacco use remains our nation's most preventable threat to life and health. This public health crisis has generated widespread debate over how best to prevent young people from initiating smoking or using other tobacco products. Combating Teen Smoking is an invaluable guide for policymakers and communities on the front lines of this prevention effort.
Synthesizing recent research regarding the prevention and control of adolescent smoking, this book offers the reader a convenient compendium of what is known about adolescents and tobacco use; it also highlights areas where additional research is needed. Based on their assessment of the considerable amount of information presented, the authors recommend various ways to help slow--or even reverse--the recent rise in teenage smoking. A comprehensive antitobacco program might include, for example, antismoking media campaigns based on social marketing strategies, clean indoor air laws, and the increase of cigarette prices.
Combating Teen Smoking will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers concerned about the problem of adolescent tobacco use, including policymakers who are actively seeking ways to help reduce teen smoking.
Peter D. Jacobson is Associate Professor, University of Michigan School of Public Health. Paula Lantz is Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Public Health. Kenneth Warner is Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Public Health and Director, University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network. Jeffrey Wasserman is Consultant, the RAND Corporation and Senior Project Director, The MEDSTAT Group. Harold Pollack is Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Public Health. Alexis Ahlstrom is Research Associate, University of Michigan School of Public Health.

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Making Americans Healthier

Social and Economic Policy as Health Policy

Robert F. Schoeni

Russell Sage Foundation, 2008

The United States spends billions of dollars annually on social and economic policies aimed at improving the lives of its citizens, but the health consequences associated with these policies are rarely considered. In Making Americans Healthier, a group of multidisciplinary experts shows how social and economic policies seemingly unrelated to medical well-being have dramatic consequences for the health of the American people. Most previous research concerning problems with health and healthcare in the United States has focused narrowly on issues of medical care and insurance coverage, but Making Americans Healthier demonstrates the important health consequences that policymakers overlook in traditional cost-benefit evaluations of social policy. The contributors examine six critical policy areas: civil rights, education, income support, employment, welfare, and neighborhood and housing. Among the important findings in this book, David Cutler and Adriana Lleras-Muney document the robust relationship between educational attainment and health, and estimate that the health benefits of education may exceed even the well-documented financial returns of education. Pamela Herd, James House, and Robert Schoeni discover notable health benefits associated with the Supplemental Security Income Program, which provides financial support for elderly and disabled Americans. George Kaplan, Nalini Ranjit, and Sarah Burgard document a large and unanticipated improvement in the health of African-American women following the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Making Americans Healthier presents ground-breaking evidence that the health impact of many social policies is substantial. The important findings in this book pave the way for promising new avenues for intervention and convincingly demonstrate that ultimately social and economic policy is health policy. A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy

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RSF

The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: The Underground Gun Market: Implications for Regulation and Enforcement

Philip J. Cook

Russell Sage Foundation, 2017

Each year, gun homicides kill over ten thousand people in the United States. While most guns are initially purchased legally, many enter the underground market and end up in the hands of dangerous offenders, such as gang members and convicted felons. This issue of RSF, edited by public policy scholars Philip J. Cook and Harold A. Pollack, brings together eight articles exploring the markets for guns, both legal and illegal. The contributors draw from new datasets and interviews with inmates to examine how offenders obtain guns. By turning a spotlight on these little-understood supply chains, these chapters provide guidance for stemming the flow of guns to the underground market.

Cook and Pollack initiate the discussion with a comprehensive introduction that includes an original framework for understanding the legality of transactions that arm dangerous offenders. Several contributors review trends in gun ownership across the nation and investigate how guns enter the underground market. Deborah Azrael and coauthors conduct a comprehensive survey of gun owners and find 270 million guns in private circulation. They estimate that 70 million firearms changed hands during a recent five-year period. Most of those transactions were sales by licensed dealers; Garen Wintemute reports on a survey of dealers that assesses the wide disparities among them as sources of guns to offenders. Charles Wellford and coauthors use trace data and prison interviews to study how criminals obtain their guns in three jurisdictions that differ widely with respect to gun regulations and culture.

Other contributors explore the effects of gun regulations and legislation on illegal supply chains. Daniel Webster and coauthors study the effects of Maryland’s 2013 Firearm Safety Act, which required all handgun purchasers to obtain a license. They find that 41 percent of surveyed parolees reported that it was more difficult to obtain a handgun after the law passed due to increased cost, lack of trusted sources, or people being less willing to buy handguns on their behalf. Analyzing over three decades of data on handguns recovered in Boston, Anthony Braga shows that fewer guns are illegally obtained from states that adopt legislation restricting buyers to one gun per month. George Tita and coauthors report the results of an inmate survey in Los Angeles in which they explored respondents’ knowledge of gun laws. These findings suggest that laws aimed at legal gun transactions may also decrease the entry of guns into the underground market.

The rate of gun violence in the U.S. surpasses that of any other advanced nation. This issue of RSF offers new empirical research on the underground market that arms dangerous criminals and provides a rich foundation for policies designed to curb gun violence.

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