HLTH 355: Addressing Health Disparities through Social Justice

Final Paper Assignment

Overview: You will identify a health disparity related to the book you read, prove that it is a health disparity, choose a social force (from the list below) that contributes to your health disparity, identify and read two academic articles on the relationship between the social force and your health disparity, explain how this social force leads to the health disparity (using examples from your book club book),provide recommendations on how we can address the health disparity by addressing the social dynamic.

Assignment

For this assignment, you will produce a paper (6-8 double-spaced pages) that focuses on one social force that helps to explain one of the health disparities that we covered in class. Students may choose any of the following social dynamics relevant to their assigned book.

Nickel and Dimed
-nonstandard work
-working conditions
-housing
-gender socialization/gender roles
-stress

Spirit Catches You
-patient-physician communication
-social support
-gender roles/family roles
-social isolation

$2 a Day
-nonstandard work
-housing
-neighborhood environment
-social support
-geographic isolation

Required Content

1. Describe the specific health disparity of interest. What is the health outcome, and are different rates based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, income, occupation/employment, age, or immigrant status? Provide both statistical (from the BRFSS) and theoretical support for determining that this is a health disparity. As you introduce your health disparity, be sure to use at least one concept that we covered before the midterm (e.g., concepts related to the social institution of healthcare, social stratification, or power).

2. Explain how your chosen social force can help us to understand this health disparity. Provide at least two examples from your book to help illustrate what this social force looks like in everyday interactions.

3. To provide evidence of how your social force is related to your health disparity, summarize information from at least two academic articles that focus on your social force (these cannot be news articles or websites) and its relationship to your health outcome.

4. Explain how addressing this social force would be an example of "health in all policies." Describe one way that we can take a social justice approach to address it (for this, you can describe existing efforts or describe efforts from the past).