Course Info: CSI-0284

The main goal of this course is to examine inequality in the context of sickness and health in the United States. Using a biocultural perspective, the synergistic interface of biology and culture provides a framework for how to examine health in an interdisciplinary manner. We will examine the ways in which inequality engenders ill health, is socially constructed, and the important role that social institutions, ideology, and cultural and medical practices play in creating and perpetuating various forms of inequality. Using a series of case studies that will clarify the way to go about studying inequality and health, students will examine diverse health experiences and the ways in which culture constructs perceptions of health and effective delivery of health care. We also examine the role the medical research plays in setting health care agendas. Students will finish the term with a clearer understanding how health inequalities are generated and perpetuated, and how to think critically about their own health choices. Given time constraints, we will not be able to study everything related to this topic.

Every student in the class was expected to participate in discussion, complete a series of short writing assignments, and work as part of a team and individually on topic areas that situates inequality and health within biocultural frameworks, peer-reviewed scholarship, and public discourse. For this work students were asked to consider the ways information about the intersections of inequality and sickness are discussed and understood within the groups that are impacted, and consider models that can rethink health disparities and offer more equal access to wellness. The culmination of this team/individual work was a final presentation, accompanied by project/paper to be turned in at the end of the semester.