Fall 2023 Sociomedical Sciences P8750 section 001

Race and Health

RACE AND HEALTH

Call Number 16018
Day & Time
Location
W 1:00pm-3:50pm
To be announced
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Robert E Fullilove
Type LECTURE
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description Over the 17 years that I have taught this course, I have tried to present students with articles that would provide an exposure to the growing body of research, commentaries, and critiques that discuss the relationships between race, ethnicity, and health. The premise upon which our work is based is rather simple: race is highly correlated with health status, but after many years of investigating this association, researchers are not entirely clear what this association means, nor are they clear how to use their research to improve the lot of people of color who are at risk for a wide variety of health conditions. Put more precisely, we don’t know what it is about someone’s race that causes the excess morbidity and mortality that is observed among members of so many ethnic minority groups. Typically, in the first class of the semester, students find this to be a puzzling way of defining the key issues in race and health. Given the dynamics of last year’s presidential elections where race played a huge role, it seems all the more bizarre to suggest that race is a concept of limited value to the science of public health. To students born in this country or who have lived here for an extended period of time, nothing could be more obvious than the fact that race matters. Racism is a fact of American life, and that its victims should suffer poorer health status than mainstream Americans seems almost self-evident. As the semester progresses and as the critique of current health research about race becomes more pronounced in the readings, students of all races, I hasten to add often feel compelled to say: “I don’t care what the articles say, race MATTERS!!!!!” Agreed. Race does matter, and it often matters in ways that are intensely personal, painful, and gut-wrenching. But the point of this course is not to deny the student’s personal experience of race, but rather to ask you to look beyond such experiences to develop a science of public health that specifies how and in what way race “acts” to cause the excess morbidity and mortality we observe in so many communities of color.
Web Site Vergil
Department Sociomedical Sciences
Enrollment 57 students (55 max) as of 9:07PM Thursday, October 17, 2024
Status Full
Subject Sociomedical Sciences
Number P8750
Section 001
Division School of Public Health
Open To GSAS, Public Health
Section key 20233SOSC8750P001