This course was meant to introduce the social nature of health and illness, and to different models that inform aspects of our understanding of health phenomena. The varying experience of social groups according to demographic, cultural, environmental and economic patterning will be viewed through a global perspective alongside the changing profile of health and illness.
Throughout the course, I wrote two important essays I would like to share. The first, I analyzed the environment as a determinate of health. I found the relationship between health and ecosystems goes beyond the dominant biomedical or epidemiological attitudes towards health and therefore our definition should be socially and broadly defined to include external factors. The second essay looked at the intersection of health, social capital, and gender. It was an extremely important project to me because it's very applicable to the work I will be doing in New Orleans. |
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