Author Description

"[Elizabeth Kath] has made a remarkably original contribution to social science research on contemporary Cuba, and I am certain this work will be quite useful for generations of future researchers interested in this topic. It is a richly detailed and intellectually sophisticated analysis of health in contemporary Cuba and an outstanding contribution to the literature."---Katherine Hirschfeld, University of Oklahoma "Elizabeth Kath explores the profound contradiction in Cuban health care between political intentions and goals on the one hand and the complicated workings of practice on the other. She examines the official picture, often presented through statistics and quoted in many studies, which stresses the achievements of Cuban health care. The most interesting contribution of the book, however, is her scrutiny of the complexities of everyday health care practices. Kath shows that state paternalism, which is one of the reasons for its success, also becomes the very obstacle to health care quality, as fear of not fulfilling the goals set up by the state impede real participation and creativity and counteracts the positive cooperation between medical staff and patients."---Mona Rosendahl, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, Stockholm University (Sweden) and author of Inside the Revolution: Everyday Life in Socialist Cuba "In this astute and unflinching examination of Cuba's health care system, Elizabeth Kath pulls back the curtain on the island's `medical miracle' to reveal how its top-down approach limits the ability of the Cuban people to influence their own medical care. Filled with insights based on extensive field research, this book illuminates the paradoxes of the Cuban model and reveals important lessons for everyone concerned about improving health care outcomes in the developing world."---Daniel P. Erikson, senior associate for U.S. policy at the Inter-American Dialogue and author of The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United S