WGS.151
Gender and Public Health
Draws on different disciplines, conceptual frameworks, and methodological approaches to examine gender in relation to health, including public health practice, epidemiologic research, health policy, and clinical application. Discusses a variety of health-related issues that illustrate global, international, domestic, and historical perspectives. Considers other social determinants of health as well, including social class and race. Limited to 15.
Spring 2016 · Gender, Health, and Society
Topics
- Biology, History, and Conceptual Frameworks
- Cardiovascular Disease and Hormone Therapy
- Gender Analysis
- Pregnancy and Birth
- Abortion
- Sexual Orientation
- Gender Identity and Expression
- Contraceptives
- Mental Health and Sex-Based Research
- Final Project Presentations
Readings
- [J] = Jacob, Krista, ed. Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice . Seal Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781580051859.
- [JA] = Jaggar, Alison M. Just Methods: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Reader . Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 9781594512049.
- [M] = Martin, Emily. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction . Beacon Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807046456.
- [W] = Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present . Anchor, 2008. ISBN: 9780767915472.
- [WA] = Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel. On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950–1970 . The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780801858765.
- [F] Chapter 1: A Genderless Future?
- [F] Chapter 2: Of Spirals and Layers.
- [F] Chapter 8: Pink And Blue Forever.
- [F] Chapter 9: The Developmental Dynamics of Pink and Blue.
- Optional (further detail on epidemiology)
- [H] Chapter 1: Definition and Background.
- Optional (further detail on study designs)
- [H] Chapter 2: Design Strategies in Epidemiologic Research.
- [H] Chapter 5: Descriptive Studies.
- Optional (further detail about measures of association)
- [G] Chapter 3: The Occurrence of Disease: I. Disease Surveillance and Measures of Morbidity.
- [G] Chapter 4: The Occurrence of Disease: II. Mortality and Other Measures of Disease Impact.
- [G] Chapter 11: Estimating Risk: Is There an Association?
- [G] Chapter 12: More on Risk: Estimating the Potential for Prevention.
- Optional (further research method examples)
- [H] Chapter 4: Measures of Disease Frequency and Association.
- [M] Chapter 4: Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Birth.
- [JO] Chapter 6: The Achievement of Authoritative Knowledge in an American Hospital Birth.
- Optional (further detail on trials)
- [H] Chapter 8: Intervention Studies.
- [G] Chapter 9: Cohort Studies.
- [L] Chapter 5: Women and the Right to Abortion.
- [J] Higgins, Jenny. Chapter 2: Sex, Unintended Pregnancy, And Poverty: One Woman’s Evolution from ‘Choice’ to ‘Reproductive Justice’.
- Optional (further detail on cohort studies)
- [H] Chapter 7: Cohort Studies.
- Optional (further detail on bias and confounding)
- [H] Chapter 11: Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies: Evaluating the Role of Bias.
- [H] Chapter 12: Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies: Evaluating the Role of Confounding.
- [F] Chapter 6: Thinking About Homosexuality.
- [H] Chapter 6: Case-Control Studies.
- [F] Chapter 5: Am I a Boy or a Girl?–The Emergence of Gender Identity.
- Optional (further detail about case-control studies)
- [G] Chapter 10: Case-Control and Other Study Designs.
- [W] Chapter 8: The Black Stork–The Eugenic Control of African American Reproduction.
- [WA] Chapter 4: Debating the Safety of the Pill, pp. 73–80.
- [WA] Chapter 3: Sex, Population, and the Pill.
- [WA] Chapter 4: Debating the Safety of the Pill, pp. 102–81.
- [WA] Chapter 5: Oral Contraceptives and Informed Consent.
- [F] Chapter 10: Epilogue – The Future of Gender (And Sex).
- [F] Chapter 3: Of Molecules and Sex.
- [F] Chapter 4: Of Hormones and Brains.
- No full texts are required for this course. However, the following text has many chapters of required reading:
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units. HASS-S
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2016
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.