社会福祉・社会保障 — 全 下位分類

When millions of Syrians fled civil war after 2011, international donors and humanitarian organizations mobilized to provide assistance to neighboring countries. Focusing on Jordan-one of the world's largest refugee hosting states-Disease and Diplomacy investigates how medical aid to refugees operates as an instrument of diplomacy and control within the global refugee system. It argues that health, far from being an apolitical humanitarian good, is a bargaining tool that states commodify to extract resources and concessions.

Drawing on years of field research, interviews, and policy analysis, the book shows how the Jordanian government, international donors, and humanitarian agencies turned healthcare for refugees into a tool for negotiating power, resources, and responsibility. In these cases, refugees, caught within these negotiations, often found their access to care determined not by medical need, but by political calculation. Developing the concept of the weaponization of medical aid, the book extends theories of migration diplomacy and refugee rentierism to show how global power dynamics shape who receives healthcare. The analysis identifies a self-reinforcing "crisis loop" that privileges short-term, highly visible responses while neglecting chronic and long-term needs. Disease and Diplomacy advances an interdisciplinary framework for understanding how humanitarian practices reinforce global inequalities and argues for more equitable approaches to refugee health and responsibility-sharing in the international system.

This book assesses the conceptual and practical contributions of the normativist and well-being approaches to health. A particular emphasis is placed on the holistic theory of Lennart Nordenfelt. The contributions of this theory are synthesized and discussed, and their relevance is put to the test, particularly with regard to mental health, which is particularly original and innovative in the field. Particular attention is paid to Nordenfelt's notions of ability and compulsion, assessing their relevance to the definition of the pathological character of depression and addiction. In addition, the book includes discussions of the notions of function and harm, for which it proposes redefinitions that take account of the most recent developments in the philosophy of medicine. Finally, the book extends this reflection on the central notions emerging from normativism in the definition of health: well-being by providing a critical analysis of the relationship between those two concepts. Several chapters discuss the relevance of a notion of well-being in the definition of health, mobilizing the philosophy of well-being as well as medical ethics.

This volume advances a new process-based theory of well-being. It guides readers through a critical review of the theoretical foundations of well-being, to a model of assessment, and finally to intervention protocols that promote well-being across diverse settings, including health and mental health clinics, and the workplace. It adopts a systems framework that views well-being as emerging from a dynamic and complex network of interactions across bio-psycho-social-existential domains of our living environment. The volume, first, draws from ancient Stoicism and modern existential philosophy to revise existing theoretical frameworks. Second, it presents findings from interview studies and psychometric research that identify prototypical activities that support our goal-directed effort to live well, even in the presence of life stressors. This descriptive feedback is applied prescriptively as a guide for self-care or counselling. The volume, finally, outlines key issues for a process-based research agenda that promotes well-being in the areas of theory, assessment, and clinical practice.

This volume is for a wide cross-section of readers who are looking for a novel, evidence-based model of well-being that is theoretically informed, and that can be readily applied in assessment and intervention programs. It is useful for social workers, program administrators, allied health professionals, and medical personnel involved in programmes/services in public health, health care clinics, community-based counselling, and workplace health. It will also be of primary interest to researchers and students interested in health, well-being, health-related quality of life, patient-reported outcomes, and patient-centred care, in the health and social sciences or in applied philosophy.

The volume offers a pioneering intervention in global literary and cultural studies by tracing representations of disability across the entire twentieth century-from early modernist literature to late postcolonial and popular cultural forms. Unlike most existing works that focus primarily on twenty-first-century narratives, this volume provides rare historical depth and a globally inclusive perspective.

Bringing together literary, cinematic, regional, and mythic narratives from Western and non-Western contexts-including Indian literature and film-the book constructs a comparative framework that illuminates how disability is embedded in diverse historical, cultural, and political settings. Covering texts from Kafka and Faulkner to Odia fiction and Indian partition narratives, it spans early modernism, interwar poetics, post-World War II trauma narratives, and late-century cultural media such as cinema, comics, autobiography, and myth.

Balancing academic rigour with accessibility, this book is an essential resource for scholars, students, and educators interested in literature, culture, and critical disability studies.

In this book, economist Orhan Erdem breaks down key social insights from COVID-19 and other pandemics throughout human history. It explores the myriad ways that a global pandemic impacts social structures and communities.

Drawing on examples throughout human history, the book highlights the key insights researchers have gathered and what the public can do to prevent the same disruptive responses in the future. The chapters explore core aspects of social life: healthcare, politics, education, community, and technology. Building on stories from literature and lived experience, the book offers a narrative exploration of how a pandemic's aftershocks reshape social life, educational systems, public policy, technology, and economies.

Both the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine became major crises for public managers in the Visegrad 4 states of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Each of those states responded in different ways to the two crises, based on their ideologies and levels of capabilities. Of course, the two crises themselves were very different in terms of their impact on the public and the set of public managers that needed to make critical decisions. This work proposes that there are three stages in crisis management, and that theoretical perspective will lay the groundwork for analysis of the four states. Those stages include Risk Assessment, Risk Management, and Risk Communication. Taken together, they offer a portrayal of the Resilience of each state in terms of both public management and the general public.

This book brings together a group of active researchers and leading scholars of international social work with a special interest in contemporary issues and developments in Asian & Pacific Island regions. The original works stem from peer-reviewed paper presentations and invited keynote speeches at the APISWEA International Conferences, offering a comprehensive exploration of "state of the art" of Asian Pacific Islander social work research and practice with additional contributions from the broader international community. The manuscripts span diverse clusters, from professionalization and education in social work to emerging areas like Artificial Intelligence in practice, responses to epidemics, and the integration of indigenous perspectives in social work. By addressing critical themes such as localization, community development, and international collaboration, this rare collection provides valuable insights for both scholars and practitioners.

Along with a sister volume entitled Social Work and Social Sciences in the New Era: Cultural Perspectives and Asian Pacific Island Approaches, the book serves as an essential resource for social work professionals, educators, policymakers, and researchers who seek to understand and contribute to the evolving landscape of social work in the Asia-Pacific region. It is particularly beneficial for those involved in shaping the future of social work education, practice, and policy, ensuring that the unique needs and perspectives of diverse communities are effectively addressed.

This book addresses contemporary global crises, ranging from pandemics and armed conflicts to economic instability and political corruption, through the lens of "social fairness". Social fairness refers to the principle that all individuals across the globe and locally should be treated equitably, with access to opportunities, resources, and rights regardless of their background, identity, or circumstances. It encompasses concepts like justice, equality, and inclusivity, ensuring that societal systems do not favor one group over another but instead promote societal wellbeing for all. Drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives based on years of international research collaboration by the "New Frontiers of Studies on Fair Society" research network, the book explores how principles of justice and wellbeing can guide responses to these complex global challenges. This volume therefore takes a global approach to advance the development of multidimensional ideals of wellbeing and fairness and proposes a new public philosophy of prosperity and justice.

This book offers a comprehensive and pedagogically grounded examination of disability and work in Italy, reframing labour inclusion not only as an employment policy issue but as a matter of social participation, human development, and democratic citizenship. Drawing on special pedagogy, the authors shift attention from individual impairment to the relational dynamics between people, activities, and work environments.

The volume traces the cultural, historical, and legislative evolution of Italian approaches to labour inclusion, highlighting the shift from welfare-oriented models to frameworks centred on recognition, autonomy, and substantive equality. It maps the professional roles that support workplace integration and examines how organisations interpret and enact accessibility across physical-environmental, organisational, and relational dimensions. Building on this foundation, the book presents findings from an inter-university research project that investigates accessibility practices within Italian companies, from onboarding and workplace adjustments to organisational climate and the awareness of employers and internal stakeholders.

By weaving together theoretical reflection, legal analysis, and empirical evidence, the authors argue for a structural and educational approach to inclusion; one that understands accessibility as a design principle shaping policies, organisational cultures, and everyday professional relationships. This concise and action-oriented volume is essential reading for scholars, educators, policymakers, HR professionals, and practitioners committed to building inclusive workplaces and advancing disability rights in Italy and beyond.

Timely lessons for today's health and climate crises rooted in the origins of a government's provision for the common good

The question of whether a government should take care of its people-preparing and investing in public health, welfare, and resilience policies-is arguably more important today than ever, as the world faces unprecedented climate and health crises.

Commonwealth's exploration of the Venetian Republic, one of the oldest and most enduring republics in history, establishes for the first time that Venice and its constituent republics developed welfare policies not in response to the Plague, as is commonly thought, but two centuries earlier. Alexander More reveals that the lawmakers of Venice took advantage of its historic economic revival not to profit personally but to provide free medical care for their people. The Republic also inspected and guaranteed the quality and availability of food, water, and medicine, even when sudden climatic changes caused harvests to fail and supply chains to shift.

Through original archival research in multiple languages, More shows that the welfare state of the Venetian Republic, from which our modern system is derived, took shape through deliberate efforts to work toward the common good. Readers interested in the history of medicine and public health, food security, welfare, climate science, and law will benefit from new insights into the origin and nature of commonwealth in society.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of how the rapid advancement of digitalization is influencing and transforming the landscape of the social work field. Through comprehensive exploration and insightful discussions, the book delves into the intricate ways technology shapes the delivery of social services, ethical considerations, and the overall role of social workers in an increasingly technology-driven world. This topic is particularly relevant now, as new technologies are increasingly being adopted across sectors, including social services, to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Social workers are increasingly engaging with these changes, navigating how technology can support better decision-making, streamline interventions, and enhance outcomes for service users.

The book's 14 chapters are organized in three parts. Part I examines how the profession has been adapting to Industry 4.0 and artificial intelligence (AI), exploring social transformations, digital vulnerabilities, and the transformative role of emerging technologies like AI in social work. This section sets the stage for understanding the intersection of technological change and social work practice. Part II addresses specific fields of intervention, exploring how digital technology is being applied in child protection, elderly care, rural mental health, and support for migrants and refugees, among others. This section highlights how technology can be leveraged to enhance social work interventions, focusing on improving care for vulnerable populations and addressing grand challenges in the field. The third and final part delves into emerging topics, discussing the ethical challenges, the role of interdisciplinarity in the digital age, the use of AI for data analysis in social interventions, professional training in a digitalized world, and pedagogical innovation in social work courses. This section points to future opportunities and challenges, emphasizing the importance of preparing social workers for a rapidly digitalizing world.

Social Work in the 21st Century: The Challenges of a Digital World is a timely and important resource for social work professionals, students, educators, and academics keen to deepen their understanding of how technology transforms the field. The book also appeals to those with existing knowledge who wish to explore the impact of the digital in social intervention.

This book offers the first feminist and disability-informed account of how identities are co-constructed and how they ought to be shaped. Challenging dominant individualistic theories of the self, Alexandra Romanyshyn argues that many traditional accounts inadvertently exclude people with cognitive disabilities and overlook the lived realities of marginalized groups. Drawing on feminist philosophy, disability studies, developmental psychology, and care ethics, the book develops a normative relational theory of selfhood that addresses both the promise and the risks of our narrative dependence on others. Romanyshyn proposes moral and intellectual virtues that guide ethical identity construction, and she examines how individuals can resist and repair harmful narratives. Interdisciplinary and empirically informed, this monograph offers a compelling framework for understanding flourishing selves in a world shaped by relationships.

American labor unions are in crisis. Unionization rates have been in decline for decades. Hospital workers' unions, however, are growing. Today, they are among the most potent forces in the American labor movement. The Moral Economy of Care seeks to understand both the historical developments that have led to this state of affairs, and the ethical dilemmas of striking and workplace conflict in hospitals today.

The COVID pandemic laid bare the moral injury care workers suffer due to the burden of balancing patient wellbeing against market incentives. Pablo Gaston argues that these longstanding ethical tensions are linked to care workers' mass scale mobilization, with deep roots in the history of care work in the US. The notable successes of today's hospital workers' unions, Gaston argues, can be explained by their ability to leverage a rhetorical framework that reconciles the tension; care workers strike because they care, whereas capital is uncaring. Following two unions working to organize California hospital workers over the course of seven decades, this book shows how moral conceptions of caring shaped collective bargaining patterns in hospitals in the twentieth century.

This Open Access book argues for a more prominent position on political and policy agendas for European population ageing. In the coming two decades, ageing populations will put significant pressure on pension systems, budgets, and economies in the European Union. Increasingly close integration between EU member states through political ties, trade and a common currency, means ageing in one country will have a direct impact on other member states. The book sketches four potential risks with cross-border implications: economic stagnation within the EU, high national debts and divergence, upward pressure on inflation, and socio-political tension within and between member states. In the report European Aging in Focus. Dealing with Pension and Budgetary Risks, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) outlines three policy directions to anticipate and mitigate these risks: anticipate an ageing European Union and prepare society for it; steer at the EU level towards ageing-resilient socio-economic and pension policies; and protect at the national level against potential negative consequences of European ageing. While this book has a specific focus on the position of the Netherlands within an ageing Europe, it is of interest to policy makers and researchers across Europe interested in population ageing, associated pension and budgetary risks, and particularly in potential effects of these risks across national borders.

This open access book from the Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network addresses food security, health, and wellbeing among migrants and refugees who faced heightened vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a blend of survey data, personal narratives, and compelling images, it illustrates the consequences of the pandemic for migrants and refugees from Afghanistan, the DRC, Ghana, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe, living in the destination countries of Canada, South Africa, Ecuador, and Qatar. The contributors focus on four themes: the food security and health implications of public health responses to COVID-19; the impact of these measures on marginalised refugees and migrants in urban settings; gender differences in accessing food and food-related programs; and key policy lessons for vulnerable populations in times of crisis. This book will be useful to academics, students, and stakeholders engaged with migrant and refugee communities, as well as policymakers seeking actionable insights. While focused on COVID-19, its insights are relevant for future public health emergencies.

This open access book examines timely issues of integrated, international, and harmonized longitudinal research on child development and wellbeing. It describes the unique approach of the Growing up in Digital Europe (GUIDE) study, which is rooted in robust scientific inquiry and provides a solid evidence base for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers focused on child development in a digital world. Chapters employ a parallel structure, including background on each GUIDE topic as well as a summary of the current state of, future directions in, and recommendations for additional research. The book offers several select case studies that provide synergy and coherency across the chapters.

Key areas of coverage include:

• Holistic understanding of child wellbeing.
• Child development in the digital age.
• Child-centered research approaches.
• Cross-national harmonized questionnaire development.
• Potential for data linkage and biological data.
• Ethical considerations in an age of digital data.
• Fieldwork best practices, including translation.
• Sampling frames across diverse jurisdictions.

Growing up in Digital Europe is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as policy makers, educators, and related professionals in developmental, clinical child, and school psychology, family studies, clinical social work, migration studies, health psychology, economics, and all related disciplines.

Pain in Relation: On Causality, Chronicity, and (Crip) Evidence argues that the dominant stories circulating within contemporary US culture are marked by seemingly contradictory certainties: pain is at once subjective yet universal; that pain makes life unlivable and can be overcome with perseverance. These certainties graft onto pained people into impossible imperatives: the imperatives to live "despite" our pain and to defend the value of lives imagined to be compromised "because of" it. Alyson Patsavas outlines the harm these imperatives cause and draws on feminist, queer, and disability theory to offer alternative frameworks for making sense of and relating to pain.

The study fleshes out "crip autotheory" and experiments with evidencing practices, using anecdotes, journal entries, personal reflections, list-making, and photography to map "cripistemologies of pain," or critical, disability-informed experiential ways of knowing pain. Equal parts cultural critique, intimate portrait of pained life, and commentary, Pain in Relation invites readers to challenge what they think they know about pain and explore new ways of relating to pain, pained life, and the futures we imagine for pained people.

Medicines travel, transform, and multiply meanings across Asia's markets, temples, texts, and bodiesWhat makes something a medicine? To answer this deceptively simple question, Global Lives of Medicines offers twelve richly detailed biographies of medicinal substances across Asian history. From ginseng and frankincense to aconite, radish, and live leeches, contributors trace how materials moved through markets, temples, courts, homes, and laboratories while continually acquiring new meanings and uses.

Across the chapters, familiar categories begin to dissolve. Substances may function simultaneously as food, poison, ritual tool, or sacred object. Healing agents may be plant roots, minerals, aromatics, or even living creatures. Through these diverse case studies spanning East and South Asia, Global Lives of Medicines demonstrates how the boundaries between medicine, technology, religion, and commerce were constantly negotiated in different historical contexts. By placing these biographies in dialogue, it offers a new approach to the history of medicine-one that foregrounds the materiality, mobility, and cultural transformation of therapeutic substances across Asia.

This book challenges the dominance of GDP as the primary benchmark of social progress and offers a rigorous framework for rethinking economic success in high-income economies. Drawing on the evolution of welfare measurement-from GDP to MEW, NNW, and the Genuine Progress Indicator-the book critically examines the limits of growth-centered policy and its implications for wellbeing. Moving beyond conventional market-failure analysis, the author introduces a novel system and factor approach that addresses observed failures of modern economies alongside pressing global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and geopolitical conflict. By integrating welfare-enhancing policies with explicit consideration of welfare-deductive risks, the book provides a balanced and policy-relevant vision of societal development. This volume will be of interest to scholars and graduate students in economics, public policy, and social welfare, as well as policymakers seeking practical pathways toward a welfare-oriented mature society.

This book looks at the multiple ways in which climate change contributes negative impacts on the healthcare sector globally, posing a number of challenges to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In taking an integrative approach to the SDGs and their implementation in Asian healthcare, the book highlights the health consequences of biodiversity loss in the healthcare sector. The authors unpack how rising temperatures, extreme weather conditions, and altering rainfall patterns intensify current health-related threats that slowing progress towards SDG 3, focused on health and well-being. They delve into how disadvantaged, underserved, and marginalized populations, including the elderly, children, and low-income communities, face health risks, highlighting the need for inclusive strategies to achieve gender equality (SDG 5) and reduced inequalities (SDG 10) to promote equality movement and health equity. The book draws attention to how effective implementation and mitigation of climate change risk strategy are essential, including reducing economic inequalities (SDG 8) in rural and/or underdeveloped areas that caused the unequal distribution of healthcare resources and accelerating industry innovation (SDG 9) to strengthen healthcare infrastructure, resilient healthcare systems, and digital healthcare, thus establishing more sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11). Human health and wellness are intricately depending on biodiversity (SDG 14 and SDG 15) to provide well-functioning ecosystems, stabilize the climate, and limit diseases. The volume shows that integrating climate resilience into health policies, corporate strategy, and education planning, is essential for advancing the SDGs and safeguarding public health. Relevant to researchers and policymakers in public health, climate change, and the SDGs, this is a timely contribution to discussions on the challenges facing the SDGs implementation in Asia.

This book offers a groundbreaking exploration of the military welfare history 'perspective,' a vital yet often overlooked aspect of welfare studies. It centres and defines military welfare history as an important sub-discipline, and in doing so, makes a significant contribution to scholarly debates, publications and teaching. It also delves into the intricate web of welfare, care, and medical provisions designed exclusively for armed forces personnel and their families, across different eras and regions. Comprising fifteen unique essays, this volume illuminates the diverse and evolving landscape of military welfare from the mid-eighteenth to late-twentieth centuries, spanning geographical contexts from Britain and the USA, to Zimbabwe and Russia.

Key concepts such as social justice, citizenship, and the intersection of military and civilian welfare are critically examined. The chapters explore how military welfare was connected to broader societal themes like disability, gender, and state policy, offering fresh insights into the historical and contemporary dynamics of welfare provision. This book is a must-read for scholars and practitioners alike, providing a comprehensive understanding of the military's unique welfare needs and contributions to social policy. Ideal for historians, social scientists, and policy-makers, this volume serves as an essential resource for anyone interested in the complex interplay between military service and welfare systems.

This edited volume examines the effects of the two world wars on the welfare systems of European societies. Chapters analyse the dynamics between states and transnational social actors, including international institutions, voluntary associations, charities, foundations, non-governmental organisations, and advocacy groups. A key focus is on the relations between local, national, European, and trans-Atlantic spheres of action. Thereby, this volume offers a novel examination of the temporal boundaries between wartime and peacetime social policies, investigating when the military mobilisations that drove social welfare came to an end. Offering an alternative history of how European societies experienced and emerged from the two world wars, this book reinterprets the connections between warfare and welfare as they contributed to a new postwar order-the legacies of which continue to influence contemporary welfare systems today.

The invention of autism as a medical category was viewed as a crucial step toward a new era of hope for children with disabilities. However, it has come to be a hindrance to scientific knowledge and advocacy for social inclusion. The Autism Era provides an account of the diminishing value of autism, whether as a diagnostic target for drug discovery, a category of special education eligibility, or as the basis of a neurodiverse identity.

The last few decades have seen rampant investment in scientific research and technological innovation related to autism spectrum disorder, but this frenzied activity has so far failed to produce certainty about causes or remediation. Kristin Bumiller explains this failure, first, by tracing Autism's emergence amidst major changes to the medical profession, as well as to the role of parents over the 20th century. The policy landscape that developed around autism informed changes in special education and the widespread adoption of therapeutic technologies for treatment. Bumiller exposes the interplay between these trends and the growing financial investment in autism research, which has led to a generalized disenchantment with the enterprise among those most affected - parents and caretakers.

This clear-eyed account of how we've gotten to this point cuts through the noise of controversy that has always shrouded autism studies, in order to make a prediction: that this era of autism has come to an end. Against the backdrop of a still-growing infrastructure of this scientific project - in the form on research organizations, applied behavior analysis therapy centers, and advocacy groups - Bumiller points to a nascent reckoning with this project's failure. The Autism Era is a call for a new movement, that brings about more justice for the disabled through more equitable and expansive state support.

This book examines how visually impaired social media content creators navigate their evolving digital identities through the lens of dramaturgical theory, as they move through different stages of sight loss. Drawing on the work of Erving Goffman and other sociological theorists, it explores performance, impression management, and identity construction in online spaces, shedding light on the evolving concepts of public and private self throughout the sight loss journey.

Structured around a newly developed five-stage framework (Diagnosis, Denial, Tipping Point, Coming Out, and The New Normal), chapters blend theoretical insights with real-life case studies and autoethnography to offer insights into identity renegotiation, visibility, and digital self-presentation in the digital age. Bridging academic research with practical guidance, this book brings together interviews with leading influencers, analysis of social media content, and findings from sociology, social psychology, and digital culture research. It is an essential read for scholars and students in disability and blind studies, media studies, social and digital marketing, cultural studies, as well as content creators, counselors, and disability advocates.

In this book, scholars from various fields share their insights into the role of communication in combating the American opioid crisis. The introduction provides an overview of the development of the crisis followed by a discussion of the role of communication in fighting the crisis. Part I of the book (Chapters 2-5) addresses how the language used to frame chronic pain, opioid use disorder (OUD) and the opioid crisis by the media, healthcare professionals and the public has facilitated the formation of stigmas associated with OUD and individuals with OUD and what can be done to change it. Part II of the book (Chapters 6-8) focuses on how communication can help prevent opioid misuse. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss strategies that may be used to create effective anti-opioid campaigns. Chapter 8 explores the role that academic detailing (AD) plays in improving health care providers' compliance with the CDC's guidelines for prescribing opioids and strategies for increasing the effectiveness of AD. Part III of the book (Chapters 9-10) explains how to use communication to improve OUD treatment and support individuals with OUD. Chapter 9 highlights the importance of patient-centered communication and patient navigators to OUD treatment. Chapter 10 analyzes the self-help program for individuals with OUD utilized by Narcotics Anonymous and offers suggestions for improvement. In conclusion, this book demonstrates that communication can help end the American opioid crisis by promoting prevention, removing barriers (e.g., stigmas), and improving treatment and support for individuals with OUD. The insights offered in this book will appeal to diverse readers including students of communication, persuasion and psychology, and health science; as well as campaign designers, healthcare providers, journalists, policy makers, social workers and the general public

This book traces how city councils, medical practitioners, and urban society developed their understandings of and responses to the 'French pox,' a pandemic that swept through Europe during the winter of 1494-1495, and is now more commonly known as syphilis. Focusing on the disease in Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg, two major cities in early modern Germany (1495- 1700), and using a range of primary sources, including government records, medical publications, and writings of the sick, the author argues that the city councils' responses to the disease, the orders that they issued to control its spread, and their provision of poor relief, were driven by three key factors: contagion; practicality (considerations on fnances and resources); and morality. Their understandings of these elements led to a response that prioritised the provision of aid to support the sick as a way to control the disease, protect the economy and population, and satisfy moral beliefs. Moreover, the book demonstrates the signifcant and enduring infuence of non-sexual contagion theories - the belief that the French pox spread through mechanisms like shared clothing, cutlery, and money - in law, medical thinking, and the self-portrayals of the sick. Providing an important contribution to our understanding of early modern contagion theories and their role in municipal authorities' responses to disease, this timely book will provide new insights for early modern historians researching the social history of medicine and welfare.