Race and Global Health Inequities: Social determinants and Intersectionality

3 units

Race, Health, and Inequality: Frameworks and Global Histories from Tuskegee to COVID introduces students to an interdisciplinary approach to examine how the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and other forms of inequalities shape both 1) the outcomes and distribution of health and wellness (broadly defined), and 2) how communities and individuals interact with, understand, and navigate health-related systems. While the focus of the course is on racial/ethnic inequalities in health and health outcomes, particularly among people of African descent globally, the course also highlights how race and health intersect with other axes of diversity, identities, and social determinants such as sex and gender, poverty, disability, language and literacy. Emphasis is placed on people of African descent, residing in United States and elsewhere, but the course will emphasize how lessons learned here can be extended to other ethnic/racial minorities and around the world. Students will critically interrogate structural, historical, environmental, and political factors that contribute to African Americans having some of the worst health outcomes in the U.S. The course moves students beyond locating poor health outcomes at the individual level or lack of knowledge (as a purely “behavioral” approach would suggest). Rather, the class readings and discussions explore how inequalities in health outcomes and access to health resources are the result of historically produced structures and contexts that inform people’s behaviors, limit their access to healthcare, or guide their health beliefs. If poor health is the product of structural determinants, then intervention strategies and policies must move beyond individual-level messages and practices, and instead address the underlying factors that facilitate people’s vulnerability and shape their health-related behaviors and outcomes. The course is designed to equip students with research and analytic skills from social sciences and history in critically examining the production of health inequities as they relate to intersecting issues of race/ethnicity and other axes of diversity and inequalities.