RCSH 207 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Health Disparities - Student Information

Course Goals and Student Learning Outcomes

This course will help you to:

  1. Identify, analyze and interpret factors influencing people's health status through a strong foundation in the social determinants of health

  2. Demonstrate sensitivity to diversity in communities; and

  3. Learn how to engage in health research that practices social justice strategies.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, the student will be able to:

  1. Define health disparities, health equity, and diversity

  2. Describe demographic and health care trends that affect health status of underserved/represented populations;

  3. Identify health inequities, their contributing factors, and disease outcomes across diverse, vulnerable population groups, developing intercultural knowledge;

    • Empathy: interpret intercultural experience from the perspectives of own, and more than one other, population and demonstrate ability to act in a supportive manner that recognizes the feelings of another cultural group

    • Curiosity: asks complex questions about other populations, seeks out and articulates answers to these questions that reflect multiple population perspectives

  4. Describe interdisciplinary and innovative strategies to address health inequities;

  5. Synthesize empirical research and use interdisciplinary approaches to address health inequities, fostering creativity and discovery

    • Problem-solving: develops a logical, consistent plan to solve problems and recognizes consequences of the solution and can articulate the reason for choosing the solution.

    • Innovative thinking: extends a novel or unique idea, question format, or product to create knowledge that crosses population boundaries

Standard Course Outline and/or Recent Syllabus

  • Document in content section on Beachboard

General Resources

  • A computer/laptop with MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel)

  • A citation editor program such as (Zotero, EndNote, RefWorks, or Mendeley) installed. Alternatively, those comfortable with Microsoft products are free to use the built-in citation editor in MS Word. Additional freeware or CSU-licensed software may be required as the semester progresses.

  • Health Disparities Among Under-served Populations: Implications for Research, Policy, and Praxis. 2012. Sheri R. Notaro Carol Camp-Yeakey. Emerald Group Publishing. ISBN 9781781901038

  • Toward Equity in Health: A New Global Approach to Health Disparities. 2008. Barbara C. Wallace. Springer Publishing Company. ISBN 0826103138

  • Annals of Anthropological Practice, Biocultural Approaches to Health Disparities in Global Contexts. Thomas Leatherman, David Himmelgreen, Satish Kedia. 2015. Wiley. ISBN 1119186277

  • The Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities. 2012. Barbara Wolfe William Evans Teresa E. Seeman. Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN 9781610447935

  • Environmental Health Hazards and Social Justice: Geographical Perspectives on Race and Class Disparities. 2010. Florence M. Margai. Earthscan. ISBN 1844078256

  • Gender Equity in Health: The Shifting Frontiers of Evidence and Action. 2012. Sen & Ostlin. Routledge. ISBN 0415654939

  • Health Care Disparities and the LGBT Population. 2014. Harvey & Heinz Housel (Ed). Lexington Books

  • Health Disparities and Intellectual Disabilities. 2015. Hatton & Emerson (Ed). Elsevier Science. ISBN 0128024844

  • Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Health and Medicine Division, Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Committee on Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States · National Academies Press · Paperback · 582 pages · ISBN 0309452961

  • Eliminating Health Disparities: Measurement and Data Needs. National Research Council; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education Committee on National Statistics; Panel on DHHS Collection of Race and Ethnic Data; August 9, 2004. National Academies Press

  • Examining the Health Disparities Research Plan of the National Institutes of Health: Unfinished Business. 2006. National Academies Press

  • Global Health Disputes and Disparities: A Critical Appraisal of International Law and Population Health. Dru Bhattacharya. 2012. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1136170405

  • Minority populations and health: an introduction to health disparities in the United States. 2005. LaVeist. Wiley. ISBN: 978-0-7879-6413-9

  • The Promises and Perils of Digital Strategies in Achieving Health Equity: Workshop Summary. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities; June 22, 2016. National Academies Press

  • Race, Racial Inequality, and Biological Determinism in the Genetic and Genomic Era. 2015. Matthew W. Hughey (Editor), Carson Byrd (Editor). SAGE Publications. ISBN 1506329799

  • The course will generally utilize the campus Beachboard to provide course materials through the “content” feature and to collect assignments via the “Dropbox and Turn-it-in” features.

Lecture and In-Class Activities Modules

Readings

  • Braveman P. "Health disparities and health equity: concepts and measurement." Annu Rev Public Health 2006;27:167-194

  • Starfield, B. "Basic concepts in population health and health care." J Epidemiology Community Health 2001 55:452-454

  • Krieger N. "A glossary for social epidemiology." J Epidemiol Community Health. 2001 55(10):693-700

  • Adler NE, Stewart J. Health disparities across the lifespan: meaning, methods, and mechanisms. Ann N YAcad Sci 2010 Feb;1186:5-23

Readings

  • National Academies Of Sciences, Engineering, And Medicine. 2017. "The state of health disparities in the united states." In: Communities In Action: Pathways To Health Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Doi: 10.17226/24624.

Readings

  • Link BG, Phelan JC. "Social conditions as fundamental causes of disease." Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 1995. extra:80-94.

  • Phelan, J.C., Link, B.G., 2015. "Is racism a fundamental cause of inequalities in health?" Annu. Rev. Sociol. 41, 311e330.

  • Jennifer Malat, Sarah Mayorga-Gallo, David R. Williams. "The effects of whiteness on the health of whites in the USA." Social Science & Medicine 199 (2018) 148e156

Readings

  • Thayer ZM, Kuzawa CW. "Biological memories of past environments: epigenetic pathways to health disparities." Epigenetics. 2011 Jul;6(7):798-803.

  • Gravlee, C. "How race becomes biology: Embodiment of social inequity." Am J Physical Anthropology 2009: 139: 47-57

  • Osborne-Majnik A, Fu Q, Lane RH. "Epigenetic mechanisms in fetal origins of health and disease." Clin Obstet Gynecol. 2013 Sep;56(3):622-32. doi:10.1097/GRF.0b013e31829cb99a.

  • Waterland RA, Michels KB. "Epigenetic epidemiology of the developmental origins hypothesis." Annu RevNutr. 2007;27:363-88.

  • Bell RA. "Health issues facing the state's American Indian populations." N C Med J 2004 Nov-Dec;65(6):353-355.

Readings

  • Mitchell FM. "Reframing Diabetes in American Indian Communities: A Social Determinants of Health Perspective." Health Soc Work. 2012 May;37(2):71-9.

  • Abraído-Lanza AF, Echeverría SE, Flórez KR. "Latino Immigrants, Acculturation, and Health: Promising New Directions in Research." Annu Rev Public Health. 2016;37:219-36.

Readings

  • Courtwright AM. "Justice, stigma, and the new epidemiology of health disparities." Bioethics Volume 23 Number 2 2009 pp 90–96

  • Hatzenbuehler, M.L., Phelan, J.C., Link, B.G., 2013. "Stigma as a fundamental cause of population health inequalities." Am. J. Public Health 103, 813e821

  • Asad L. Asad , Matthew Clair. "Racialized legal status as a social determinant of health." Social Science & Medicine 199 (2018) 19e28

  • Williams DR & Collins C. (2001). "Racial Residential Segregation: A fundamental cause of racial disparities in health." Public Health Reports, Volume 16(4):404-416

Readings

  • Bowleg L. "The problem with the phrase women and minorities: intersectionality – an important theoretical framework for public health." Am J Public Health. 2012;102:1267-1273

  • Castañeda H, Holmes SM, Madrigal DS, Young ME, Beyeler N, Quesada J. "Immigration as a social determinant of health." Annu Rev Public Health. 2015 Mar 18;36:375-92.

  • Echeverria SE, Pentakota SR, Abraido-Lanza AF, Janevic T, Gundersen DA, Ramirez SM, Delnevo CD. "Clashing paradigms: an empirical examination of cultural proxies and socioeconomic condition shaping Latino health." Ann Epidemiol 2013

Readings

  • Bell RA. "Barriers to Diabetes Prevention and Control Among American Indians." N C Med J 2011;72(5):393-396

  • Brawley OW, Berger MZ. "Cancer and disparities in health: perspectives on health statistics and research questions." Cancer 2008 Oct 1;113(7 Suppl):1744-1754.

  • Li CI. "Racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer stage, treatment, and survival in the United States." Ethn Dis 2005 Spring;15(2 Suppl 2):S5-9

Readings

  • Adler NE, Stewart J. "Health disparities across the lifespan: meaning, methods, and mechanisms." Ann N Y Acad Sci 2010 Feb;1186:5-23.

  • Hogan VK, Rowley D, Bennett T, Taylor KD. "Life Course, Social Determinants, and Health Inequities: Toward a National Plan for Achieving Health Equity for African American Infants-a Concept Paper." Matern Child Health J 2011 Jul 7.

Readings

  • Perez-Escamilla R. "Acculturation, nutrition, and health disparities in Latinos." Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 May; 93(5): 116S-7S

  • Daniel M, O'Dea K, Rowley KG, McDermott R, Kelly S. "Social environmental stress in indigenous populations: potential biopsychosocial mechanisms." Ann N Y Acad Sci 1999;896:420-423.

Readings

  • Geronimus AT, Hicken M, Keene D, Bound J. "'Weathering' and age patterns of allostatic load scores among blacks and whites in the United States." Am J Public Health 2006 May;96(5):826-833Hobel CJ, Goldstein A, Barrett ES. Psychosocial stress and pregnancy outcome. Clin Obstet Gynecol 2008 Jun;51(2):333-348

  • Sarah L. Szanton, Jessica M. Gill, Jerilyn K. Allen. "Allostatic Load: A Mechanism of Socioeconomic Health Disparities?" Biol Res Nurs. 2005 July; 7(1): 7–15

  • Theresa M. Beckie "A Systematic Review of Allostatic Load, Health, and Health Disparities." Biological Research for Nursing 14(4) 311-346

  • Guendelman, S., Broderick A., Mlo H., Gemmill A., & Lindeman D. 2017. "Listening to communities: Mixed-method study of the engagement of disadvantaged mothers and pregnant women with digital health technologies." Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(7), e240

  • Amy Chesser, Anne Burke, Jared Reyes, & Tessa Rohrbert 2016. "Navigating the digital divide: A systematic review of eHealth literacy in underserved populations in the United States." Informatics for Health and Social Care, 41:1,1-19.

Topic Modules

  1. Preparatory Assignments

    • Suggested readings

    • Homework

    • Bring to class items

    • Identification of content from previous research curriculum courses

  2. In-class activities

  3. Post class activities

  4. Supplemental readings/resources

Graded Assignments

All written assignments should be written in twelve-point font, double-spaced and with one-inch margins.

  1. Guidelines for Writing Response Papers (These papers should not exceed 2 pages each.)

    • Elements to keep in Mind

      1. Observation - What caught your attention? Did you notice any patterns? Did something motivate or offend you?

      2. Hypothesis - Agree and disagree by always providing explanations, arguments and examples. Express your opinion and support it with objective and critical information.

      3. Conclusion should restate the most important points of the essay.

      4. Significance - This is the "so what" moment. Why is it important or why should anyone be concerned about what you have noticed or what you are thinking?

  2. Project Paper

    • Final proposal abstract: a 2‐3-page (double‐spaced) abstract of the proposed paper

    • Final project should be 10‐12 pages of text maximum (+ references and tables/appendices), typed, double‐spaced, in 12‐point type or larger, with one‐inch margins all around, using formatting style of your discipline. For most questions, it is expected that a minimum of at least 10 references will be included in the paper