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Over the past several decades, the introduction of the business model, managerialism , into the human services has led to dramatic changes in conditions of work and service delivery. This metric-driven approach increased the emphasis on measured performance outcomes and undercut the mission-driven nature of human services organizations. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protests against racial injustice exposed routinely ignored structural racism long embedded in our social institutions. This reckoning led social workers to re-examine professional practices, organizational structures, and public policies through a critical, antiracist lens. Applying a racial justice lens to their study of the impact of managerialism in the human services workplace, authors identified troubling evidence of systemic racism in leadership hierarchies, worker control/surveillance on the job, quality of the physical work environment, exposure to workplace violence, exclusion by microinequities, and agency commitment to social justice. Worker resistance, ethical dilemmas, and well-being also varied by race. To become an antiracist profession, social work must seek long-term change in the human services workplace. The following analysis of the combined negative impact of managerialism and structural racism on human services organizations names the problem and presses us to rewrite the rules so we become a racial justice profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women will not have much choice this coming federal elections since the Democrats have veered to the right and thus closed the difference between the two major political parties. Choosing the lesser evil is better than outright refusal to vote, but neither is it enough. Women should also take action by presenting a systematic and documented argument against the prevailing patriarchal, homophobic, racist, and misogynist attitudes, design a fairer, more humane social policies, and remain organized for the long struggle.

Alternative family units are increasing but government policies continue to reflect the idea that the patriarchal, mother-at-home family is the best. This family ethic looks at poor, female-headed or single mother families with disfavor. The history of welfare programs in the US shows that the government has drawn a distinction between families that comply with the family ethic and those which do not. Cuts in the Aid to Families With Dependent Children has withdrawn support from single mothers who need it the most. Affordable housing, Medicaid, food stamps and social services are more difficult to obtain, reflecting the government mistrust of poor women.

Has public policy shaped the persistence of residential segregation by race over time? Social Structures of Accumulation (SSA) theory, which explains major shifts in policy paradigms as a response to an economic crisis informs our analysis. We compare federal housing policy across two SSAs: the Keynesian period (1940–1970) characterized by welfare state expansion and the neoliberal period (1970–2010) marked by its contraction. Using the isolation index (a segregation measure), we track changes in the 20 Great Migration cities with the highest Southern-born Black population. Segregation rose steadily from 1940 to 1970s, plateaued at high levels from 1970 to 2010, but remained higher in 2010 than in 1940. Historical policy analysis reveals that regardless of the period, federal housing policy actively promoted residential segregation and underscores the urgency for social workers to mobilize for policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatization is one way the Reagan Administration is restructuring the welfare state. Intervention in the economy was historically conceived to modify the market in behalf of social justice. In contrast, privatization channels public dollars into private hands, strengthens the two-class welfare state, and reproduces the inequalities of the free market. (Author/ABB)

This article presents work that is part of a larger and ongoing research agenda exploring the persistence of health and social problems in some parts of New York City. To this end, the authors have developed a GIS framework that translates a highly diverse set of variables into neighborhood indicators that can help local residents as well as decision makers to understand the relationship between "place" and individual behavior. Using the example of two new indices, Community Loss and Neighborhood Risks, the readers will learn how data can be transformed to emphasize the communal nature of phenomena that is typically understood only in relations to individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of books published in the field of public health. The books include "AIDS Allergy and Rheumatology," edited by Nancy E. Lane, "All About Asthma: Stop Suffering and Start Living," by Irwin J. Polk, and "Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Right to Health Care," by Richard E. Epstein.