Overview
The founders of the Western medical tradition, Hippocrates and Galen, observed inequalities in health related to social circumstances over two thousand years ago. They noticed that some groups of people in ancient Greece had higher rates of sickness and died earlier than other groups. Similar observations can be made in Canada today, where, for example, people who are poor live shorter, sicker lives than those who are better off, and Aboriginal people have much higher rates of almost all diseases and a significantly shorter life span than non-Aboriginal Canadians. Whether the main causes of disease in countries are infectious (as in developing countries, or in Western industrialized countries in the past) or related to lifestyle, the poor contract those diseases more often and die of them sooner than those who are richer. When whole groups of people suffer a similar fate, we look to explanations that are beyond the individual—instead we look to social, economic, political and historical explanations.
The social determinants of health (SDOH) are social, political, economic and cultural conditions, forces and factors that influence how health is distributed among entire groups and populations. Like the field of public health, of which social determinants is a part, the study of the SDOH is an interdisciplinary field of study that draws on research and scholarship from many areas including sociology, anthropology, political science, policy studies, epidemiology, health studies and critical gender and race studies. The course will introduce basic concepts in public health and then examine fundamental determinants of health, including income and social class, ethnicity and racism and will focus on selected specific determinants (e.g. food security) and health issues (e.g. tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS).
Learning Outcomes
After completing this course, students will be able:
- Recognize, define, and apply key concepts in public and population health.
- Critically analyze the social determinants of health in Canadian and global contexts.
- Identify policies and other interventions addressing the social determinants of health.
- Apply course concepts in the analysis of current health issues.
Terms
Evaluation
25% - Quizzes (best 8 of 10)
25% - Midterm Exam
50% - Proctored Final Exam
** Evaluation Subject to Change **
Exam Centre Location, Eligibility, and Fees
Students enrolled exclusively in online courses may choose one of two options to write this course's proctored assessments:
- You may choose to write the assessments online under supervision of an online proctoring service. A $100 fee will be charged to your SOLUS account. This fee is known as the Off Campus Exam Admin Fee and is applied in SOLUS at the earlier of: term tuition posting date, or the date at which exam writing method is changed to online. The fee is assessed once per ASO course with proctored assessments.
- You may choose to write the assessments in-person on ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ campus in Kingston at no additional charge.
Students enrolled in at least one on-campus course are expected to write this course's proctored assessments on-campus during the scheduled exam time. They will not be permitted to write this course's proctored assessments online.
Students were prompted to indicate their preferred exam writing method when enrolling in the course in SOLUS. The exam writing method may be changed by contacting the ASO Exams Team at aso.exams@queensu.ca.
Information for students writing online assessments
Selected assessments in this course will be administered in onQ using online proctoring provided by a third-party, cloud-based service. This proctoring solution was chosen to support our efforts in maintaining academic integrity when online proctoring is required. ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ has conducted an extensive privacy and security review of the service and has entered into a binding agreement with terms that address the appropriate collection, use and disclosure of personal information in accordance with Ontario's privacy legislation. To learn more about online proctoring, please see the information provided by the Office of the University Registrar.
If you registered to write online with the service, all information pertaining to the technical requirements and preparation for writing online will be posted in onQ well in advance of your exam.
The use of the service as described is unique to courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Science Online. Other Faculties use online proctoring solutions in different ways under different regulations. Students should contact the appropriate Faculty examination team if they have questions.
Timing of Final Examinations
The exam period dates for each Term are listed on the Faculty of Arts and Science webpage under "Important Dates". Student exam schedules for the Fall Term are posted to SOLUS immediately prior to the Thanksgiving holiday; for the Winter Term they are posted on the Friday before Reading Week, and for the Summer Term they are individually noted on the Arts and Science Online syllabi. Students should not make any travel plans until after the examination schedule has been posted. Exams will not be moved or deferred to accommodate employment, travel/holiday plans or flight reservations. Students experiencing extenuating circumstances preventing them from writing their exams as scheduled should review the information about the Academic Consideration process.
Textbook and Materials
ASO reserves the right to make changes to the required material list as received by the instructor before the course starts. Please refer to the Campus Bookstore website at to obtain the most up-to-date list of required materials for this course before purchasing them.
- Thistle, J. (2019). From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way. Simon & Schuster.
- Meili R (2018). A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Care Can Revive Canadian Democracy (2nd Ed.). Vancouver: Purich Books.
- Raphael D (2016). About Canada: Health and Illness (2nd Ed.). Blackpoint, Nova Scotia, and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.
** Subject to change **
Time Commitment
To complete the readings, assignments, and course activities, students can expect to spend on average, about 10 hours per week (117 - 120 hours per term) on the course.
Evaluation
25% - Quizzes (best 8 of 10)
25% - Midterm Exam
50% - Proctored Final Exam
** Evaluation Subject to Change **
Exam Centre Location, Eligibility, and Fees
Students enrolled exclusively in online courses may choose one of two options to write this course's proctored assessments:
- You may choose to write the assessments online under supervision of an online proctoring service. A $100 fee will be charged to your SOLUS account. This fee is known as the Off Campus Exam Admin Fee and is applied in SOLUS at the earlier of: term tuition posting date, or the date at which exam writing method is changed to online. The fee is assessed once per ASO course with proctored assessments.
- You may choose to write the assessments in-person on ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ campus in Kingston at no additional charge.
Students enrolled in at least one on-campus course are expected to write this course's proctored assessments on-campus during the scheduled exam time. They will not be permitted to write this course's proctored assessments online.
Students were prompted to indicate their preferred exam writing method when enrolling in the course in SOLUS. The exam writing method may be changed by contacting the ASO Exams Team at aso.exams@queensu.ca.
Information for students writing online assessments
Selected assessments in this course will be administered in onQ using online proctoring provided by a third-party, cloud-based service. This proctoring solution was chosen to support our efforts in maintaining academic integrity when online proctoring is required. ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥ has conducted an extensive privacy and security review of the service and has entered into a binding agreement with terms that address the appropriate collection, use and disclosure of personal information in accordance with Ontario's privacy legislation. To learn more about online proctoring, please see the information provided by the Office of the University Registrar.
If you registered to write online with the service, all information pertaining to the technical requirements and preparation for writing online will be posted in onQ well in advance of your exam.
The use of the service as described is unique to courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Science Online. Other Faculties use online proctoring solutions in different ways under different regulations. Students should contact the appropriate Faculty examination team if they have questions.
Timing of Final Examinations
The exam period dates for each Term are listed on the Faculty of Arts and Science webpage under "Important Dates". Student exam schedules for the Fall Term are posted to SOLUS immediately prior to the Thanksgiving holiday; for the Winter Term they are posted on the Friday before Reading Week, and for the Summer Term they are individually noted on the Arts and Science Online syllabi. Students should not make any travel plans until after the examination schedule has been posted. Exams will not be moved or deferred to accommodate employment, travel/holiday plans or flight reservations. Students experiencing extenuating circumstances preventing them from writing their exams as scheduled should review the information about the Academic Consideration process.
Textbook and Materials
ASO reserves the right to make changes to the required material list as received by the instructor before the course starts. Please refer to the Campus Bookstore website at to obtain the most up-to-date list of required materials for this course before purchasing them.
Required Textbooks
- Jesse T. (2019). From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way. Simon & Schuster.
- Meili R (2018). A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Care Can Revive Canadian Democracy (2nd Ed.). Vancouver: Purich Books.
- Raphael D (2016). About Canada: Health and Illness (2nd Ed.). Blackpoint, Nova Scotia, and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.
** Subject to change **
Time Commitment
To complete the readings, assignments, and course activities, students can expect to spend on average, about 10 hours per week (117 - 120 hours per term) on the course.