3.1: Learning Outcomes

In this Chapter, we grapple with the big questions of what makes one group of people healthier than others. The chapter focuses on the Social Determinants of Health, a core dimension of public health today. A focus on health equity and social determinants is seen in the Healthy People 2030 goals for our nation, and it is a subject that we will come back to many times during the semester.

By the end of this Chapter, students will be able to:

1. Define and give examples of social determinants of health.
2. Discuss and give examples of health inequities (also called health disparities or health inequalities) that result from social inequities.
3. Describe the evidence that supports the assertion that social determinants are better predictors of health outcomes than any other determinant (such as genetics or health behavior).
4. Define the term "embodiment."
5. Explain in basic terms three of the mechanisms through which researchers believe that social determinants are "embodied" or biologically affect health.
6. Explain the distinction between ways that social determinants affect health behaviors and ways that social determinants affect health through other pathways that don't involve behaviors.
7. Discuss the evidence that inequality itself is correlated to worse health.
8. Discuss at least one community effort to address the social determinants of health.
9. Describe at least one public policy that has had the effect of decreasing health inequities, by changing a social determinant (like access to education or access to healthcare).
10. Explain the influence of neighborhood or county, as well as nation or state, on one's health, as shown in data.
11. Tell the story of at least one concrete example of how social determinants can be or have been altered in ways that improve health outcomes.

PLEASE NOTE: As part of the chapter refers to the Unnatural Causes video (available to stream in Canvas through the CCSF Library*), this Chapter was originally divided into two parts. While those two parts have been combined, please forgive any remaining mentions of a "part 1" or "part 2" of this chapter (which may be referred to as a Lesson).

* if you are not a student at City College of San Francisco, you can view free clips of Unnatural Causes, view the episode for a fee on Vimeo, or contact your library for access to the Unnatural Causes video series.

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