Final paper due on June 22, 2020 (maximum of 8 pages double-spaced)
• There are changes taking place during the COVID-19 global pandemic that Arundhati
Roy has argued “will deepen inequalities” after the pandemic is over. How can we work against these transformations? How can we shape the direction of change to work towards health equity?
• In your final paper, you must analyze (at least) two different mechanisms of race-based health disparities in relation to at least two frameworks designed to address or ameliorate health disparities (intersectionality, social determinants of health, the eco-social approach, or structural competency). This paper will build on the kind of critique you began with your response paper for this course—pointing to the potential limitations of the theoretical frameworks we studied in the course, and analyzing how new forms of health disparities might require new forms of resistance. This assignment calls for a creative approach—use your imagination! Suggest your own idea for developing a tool to address or ameliorate health disparities—this could be anything from an educational initiative, a public health campaign, a smartphone app, or the design of a machine-learning algorithm (AI) that addresses and corrects a practice that entrenches health disparities. You don’t need to actually make anything—just describe how this tool would work and how the public could engage with it.
Theme: how can we work towards health equity?
• There are changes taking place during the COVID-19 global pandemic that Arundhati Roy has argued “will deepen inequalities” after the pandemic is over. How can we work against these transformations? How can we shape the direction of change to work towards health equity?
First Option
You must analyze two different mechanisms of race-based health disparities in
Two different options for the final paper
relation to at least two frameworks designed to address or ameliorate health disparities (intersectionality, colonialism as a determinant of Indigenous health, the eco-social approach, or structural competency). This paper will build on the kind of critique you began with your response paper for this course—pointing to the potential limitations of the theoretical frameworks we studied in the course and analyzing how new forms of health disparities might require new forms of resistance.
(This first option would allow you to continue with the format of the response paper, but analyzing different racial health disparities).
Second Option
Traditional research paper that researches one particular mechanism of race-based health dispari8es in relation to at least two frameworks designed to address or ameliorate health disparities (intersec8onality, social determinants of health, the eco-social approach, or structural competency).
(This option would allow you to delve more deeply into one topic, if there is already one particular topic that you know you want to do more research on).
Imagine anti-racist tool, policies or technology that would:
In the final paper for this course, you will have the opportunity to demonstrate not only how you can apply the concepts you
learned in this course to analyzing race-based health disparities, but also to take a creative or imaginative approach in suggesting concrete measures that can be used to eliminate race-based health disparities.
• Structural problems require structural solutions.
• But small-scale interventions are also very important—can we design public health campaigns that are actively anti-racist? What would they look like?
• Consider what anti-racist laws, policies, practices and technologies are most urgently needed. What would they look like and how would they function?
No matter which approach you to take to the final paper, you must devote a section of your paper to a discussion of how to ameliorate (or better, eliminate) health inequi8es.
• You can either come up with a new strategy and describe this in your paper, or you can analyze an existing strategy for ameliorating health inequities (say why you recommend it or why you would warn against it).
• An example of an existing strategy that you could analyze in your paper is: current policy changes being proposed to defund the police and redirect funding towards community-supporting social services.