Social Inequalities in Health

This course is designed to introduce students to the social and socio-structural factors influencing the health of individuals and populations, along with social theories which explain how health and health inequalities are shaped over the lifespan. The first portion of the course will centre on how to measure, interpret, and holestically understand common metrics of health, such as measures of morbidity, illness, disability, and life expectancy. A life course perspective will be used to understand and incorporate measures of morbidity and illness as individuals age over time. Subsequently, we will explore human health from a historical perspective, learning about the primary factors that have driven massive health improvements over the past century. Emphasis will be placed on the similarities, and differences, in these health transitions across high-, middle-, and low-income contexts. We will then explore the social and structural factors underlying health disparities both across populations and between individuals, including the roles of gender, wealth, educational attainment, occupation, ethnicity, and immigrant status. We will discuss emerging trends that threaten these continued improvements—obesity, cardiovascular disease, smoking, drug overdose, and dementia. In these discussions, we will focus on the role of social relationships in affecting health, and the ways that inequality, social stigma, and biases can perpetuate detrimental health behaviours.