Sociology: Global Health Crises

Examination of contemporary and historical case studies of global health crises to understand the role of science, politics, and power in social construction of risk and health.

Open to Degree and PACE students

We live in a risky world. Accelerating and compounding crises seem to threaten human health at unprecedented scale. Some all too familiar examples of these grave threats include Covid-19, cholera, smallpox, influenza, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, diabetes, cancer, mpox, and major mental illnesses. These health crises simultaneously challenge our political institutions to respond, disrupt our economic and social lives, and produce conflict in ways that can be unpredictable and unsettling. At the same time, we also seem to live during perhaps the healthiest and most prosperous period of all human existence. Global averages of life expectancy have steadily risen over the past two hundred years, as have incomes and wealth, though in exceedingly unequal ways. How should we make sense of these puzzling patterns that appear to point in opposite directions? What leads some of us to be insulated from these threats and others to be constantly and forcefully exposed? This course will analyze a range of historical and contemporary global health crises through the lens of the social construction, unequal distribution, and efforts to mitigate risk: our inevitably social and political efforts to make sense of an uncertain and potentially dangerous future. We privately enact ideas about risk when we decide to drive the speed limit, get vaccinated, or avoid things we believe could be dangerous. We publicly construct and govern risk when we advance public health policies that constrain ‘individual agency’, create rules that regulate technology, or otherwise seek to coordinate to promote population or community wellbeing. The tensions between public and private understandings and practices of enacting risk are what often make global health problems into full scale crises. By examining a series of contemporary and historical case studies of global health crises – and the changing and heterogeneous modes of socially constructing, scientifically defining, and politically governing risk – we can perhaps make better sense of our current moment and how we might, or ought, to think about our own uncertain future.

Students will be expected to attend all lectures sessions, participate actively in weekly course discussion board posts and online conversations, complete in-class exams, and engage in a group book report project.

Attendance and Participation (5% of final grade): • Attendance is mandatory, but students will get one unexcused absence for the semester. • Participation in class discussions will also be tracked by the teaching assistant. It’s important for all students to make contributions to class discussions at least a few times through the semester. Weekly Discussion Board Posts (15% of overall grade, due weekly): • Each week you will be required to post a one paragraph reading discussion post on Brightspace that summarizes what you understand to be the main elements of theoretical approach, as described by the reading, as well as one question you would like to pose about the reading. • You will also be required to compose a response to one of the questions posed by your classmates. • You can skip posts for two (2) weeks during the semester. Additional missing (or late) posts will result in a loss in points for this component of your grade. Book Club Review Assignment (25% of final grade): • This assignment will involve you joining with three other classmates to, over the course of the semester, read a full academic book about a global health crisis and its management (see appendix below for the full list of possible books). • You will meet with your ‘book club’ in person at least three times over the course of the semester. • As a group, you will write a 5-page (double spaced) review of your book, engaging with themes and theories that we discuss in class. Midterm Exam #1 (15% of final grade) Exam #2 (15% of final grade) Final Exam (25% of final grade):