"Sacks (UC Berkeley) addresses an area of inquiry that has received scant attention in social science research: the racial and gender discrimination experienced by women of color navigating the US healthcare system. Such experiences can have a detrimental effect on the women's physical and mental health, and Sacks offers evidence for the health disparities in the US. The main points are well supported by interviews with patients and healthcare providers; this text is as much an ethnography as it is a sociological study. Ultimately, there is much in the book that readers will find surprising and insightful." -- C. Apt, CHOICE "By examining the healthcare experiences of middle- and upper-class African-American women, Dr. Sacks adds to our basic understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic status, and health in cancer disparities. This distinguishes her volume unique and renders it a major contribution to disparities research.

" --Sarah Gehlert, PhD, Dean and University of South Carolina Distinguished Professor, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina; E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity Emerita, Washington University in St. Louis; President, American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare "In the precise domain in which Black women--and everyone--should expect to be treated with care and concern, they are instead greeted with stereotypes and disregard. After reading Invisible Visits, we might wonder if all of the mental and emotional energy that Black women expend in going to the doctor is actually making them sick. The book is essential reading for health care professionals and educators, and anyone interested in inequalities by race, class, and gender." --Mary Pattillo, PhD, Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Northwestern University; Author of Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class.