Spurring Social Justice in Public Health

This course will introduce the theory and frameworks that ground advocacy and community organizing with the aim of enabling such practices within public health and beyond. Students will deepen their understanding of the strategies behind effective advocacy, capacity building, and organizing, both in the field and within institutions. In learning history, power structures, power relations, and pre-existing models, students will learn not only about changemaking but how to affect systemic change themselves. They will learn frameworks to understand social problems and alter power relations including theory of change, relational power building, and power mapping. By examining epidemics, social movements, community health, institutional failures, and public policy, this course will provide students the ability to understand the “why” and the “how” of becoming an advocate and organizer.