Interrogating Health, Race, and Inequalities: Public Health, Medical Anthropology, and History

3 units

Interrogating Health, Race, and Inequalities is intended for graduate students in the School of Social Work and in Arts & Sciences as well as advanced undergraduates in Arts & Sciences who have previous coursework in medical anthropology, public health, or urban policy. The fundamental goal of the course is to demonstrate that health is not merely a medical or biological phenomenon but more importantly the product of social, economic, political, and environmental factors. To meet this goal the course is designed to examine the intersection of race/ethnicity and health from multiple analytic approaches and methodologies. Course readings will draw from the fields of public health, anthropology, history, and policy analysis. Teaching activities include lectures, group projects and presentations, videos, and discussions led by the course instructors. These in-class activities will be supplemented with field trips and field-based projects. By the end of the course it is expected that students will have a strong understanding of race as a historically produced social construct as well as how race interacts with other axes of diversity and social determinants to produce particular health outcomes. Students will gain an understanding of the health disparity literature and a solid understanding of multiple and intersecting causes of these disparities.