Race Matters! How Race and Racism Affect Health and Medicine

3 units

This course grapples with the relationships among race, racism, health, and medicine, both in the United States and abroad. It examines the historical roots of medical racism, the role of medical and genetic research in constructing and deconstructing race as a biological concept, and the ways that systemic racism harms health. This course will also consider how race operates with other intersecting social and political identities (e.g., ethnicity, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, class, disability) to influence health outcomes. Although anthropological and critical race theories will frame our learning, we will read broadly across other disciplines, including (but not limited to) sociology, the history of medicine, law, public health, and science and technology studies.