The Death Gap cover art

The Death Gap

How Inequality Kills

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Death Gap

By: David A. Ansell
Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban Blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. David Ansell has spent nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, and has witnessed firsthand the lives behind these devastating statistics.

In The Death Gap, he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients. While the contrasts and disparities among Chicago's communities are particularly stark, the death gap is truly a nationwide epidemic - as Ansell shows, there is a 35-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and wealthiest and the poorest and sickest American neighborhoods.

If you are poor, where you live in America can dictate when you die. It doesn't need to be this way; such divisions are not inevitable. Ansell calls out the social and cultural arguments that have been raised as ways of explaining or excusing these gaps, and he lays bare the structural violence that is really to blame.

The Death Gap outlines a vision that will provide the foundation for a healthier nation - for all.

©2017 David A. Ansell (P)2017 Tantor
Medicine & Health Care Industry Policy & Administration Poverty & Homelessness Racism & Discrimination Social Classes & Economic Disparity Social Sciences Sociology Urban Discrimination Chicago

Listeners also enjoyed...

Phantom Plague cover art
Viral Justice cover art
Dumb and Dumber cover art
Just Medicine cover art
Lifelines cover art
Eurotrash cover art
Taking Care cover art
The Doctor Will See You Now cover art
A Terrible Thing to Waste cover art
Diabetes cover art
The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America cover art
The Viral Underclass cover art
Who Says You're Dead? cover art
United States of Fear cover art
In the Kingdom of the Sick cover art
Applied Economics cover art

Critic reviews

"This moving study delivers the harsh truth about the ways that racism infects our nation's health care system, and it does so with passion and eloquence. One comes away from Death Gap feeling inspired to act, and that's a rare and wonderful accomplishment." (Beryl Satter, author of Family Properties )
No reviews yet