Health Equity: Biological and Social Determinants of Health

Catalog description

How do social structures and inequalities affect biological processes and human health? This course draws on perspectives in biology and sociology to examine how racism, genderism, economic inequality, the built environment, pollution, climate change, and other human activity affect stress, addiction, immune responses to infectious diseases and cancer, obesity, aging, genetics, and epigenetics. Students will also learn how government policies, industrial activity, or community activism can affect access to healthcare. Students will contribute to improved health equity by designing interventions that address biological and social determinants of adverse health.