The first book to examine the arguments for and against mandated nurse-to-patient ratios, utilizing survey data, interviews, and other original research to focus on two case studies (California and the Australian state of Victoria).

Very timely. The authors offer a thorough review of nurse-patient ratios, looking specifically at California and Victoria, Australia (both are places that have mandated low nurse-to-patient ratios)... showing how nurses, hospital administrators, and health care policy makers have embraced and implemented low, safe ratios. It is crucial reading for health care professionals and administrators, upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, researchers, and general readers—anyone who is a patient, may someday be a patient, or knows a patient.

Safety in Numbers is destined to become a classic. Well-written and engaging, it compares and contrasts mandated nurse-to-patient ratios in Australia and California and presents the broader context for the initiatives and their impact on nurses and the profession, as well as larger issues in health care and the labor movement more generally.

The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work explores the historical, social, political, and economic forces that shape health care work and organizations. Focusing on the work of professional and nonprofessional staff as well as family caregivers, the series illuminates how the culture of health care work affects the structuring of health policy and practice. In an increasingly global marketplace, the series also seeks to better understand the international context within which all health systems function. Looking at health policy and the health professions from a variety of perspectives, including first-person accounts, the series is aimed at a wide audience including those who work in health care, academics, policy makers, and professional organizations, as well as general readers. Proposals and inquiries about the series should be sent to Suzanne Gordon (lsupport@comcast.net) or Sioban Nelson (dean.nursing@utoronto.ca) Series Editors Suzanne Gordon is an award-winning journalist whose work focuses on the health care work force, political culture, and women's issues. She is author of Life Support:Three Nurses on the Front Lines and Nursing against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care, coauthor of Safety in Numbers:Nurse-to-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care and From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public, editor of When Chicken Soup Isn't Enough: Stories of Nurses Standing Up for Themselves, Their Patients, and Their Profession, and coeditor (with Sioban Nelson) of The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered. Sioban Nelson is Dean and Professor at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. Her books include, as coeditor, The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered and Notes on Nightingale: The Influence and Legacy of a Nursing Icon.