Poverty and Policy in Canada provides a unique, interdisciplinary perspective on poverty and its importance to the health and quality of life of Canadians. This original volume considers a range of issues that will be of great interest to a variety of audiences - Social Work, Health Sciences, Sociology, Political Science, Policy Studies, Nursing, Education, Psychology, and the general public.

Central issues include the definitions of poverty and means of measuring it in wealthy, industrialized nations such as Canada; the causes of poverty - both situational and societal; the health and social implications of poverty for individuals, communities, and society as a whole; and means of addressing the incidence of poverty and improving its effects. Particular emphasis has been placed on the lived experiences of poverty throughout the book.

This new book has three, straightforward goals:

• to provide a range of approaches for understanding poverty and its effects
• to help readers understand the structural antecedents of poverty - that is, how society and its distribution of resources are the primary determinants of poverty
• to provide realistic solutions to poverty