Social Determinants of Health

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the major social factors that affect public health at both the global and national level. Globally, students study a wide range of topics from the health impact of global income inequality, gender, and access to education, to the role of specific work place policies, among other topics. Lectures introduce a social variable (such as race or gender), discuss its theoretical underpinnings, and then link it to the current empirical evidence to health outcomes. Students learn to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the empirical evidence. The course considers the implications for intervention strategies and policy, with a focus on applicability to lower and middle-income country settings. Students also study how social factors influence health and well being, with a particular focus on national context in specific countries. Topics could include obesity, aging, socioeconomic disadvantage, access to health insurance, public health systems, the role of the media, and racial/ethnic and gender inequalities. The course provides descriptive assessments of health inequalities and analytic examinations of the mechanisms through which social factors affect health. 001071