Health Inequities in the United States: An Ecosocial Perspective
“The Elephants in the Room: Social Justice, Public Health, and Health Inequities”
Tuesday, April 15, 4 pm, Ingraham 206
“The Science and Epidemiology of US Cancer Disparities: Race/Ethnicity, Class, Gender, and the Risk of Cancer”
Wednesday, April 16, 8 am, room G5/119, UW Hospital (600 Highland Ave)
Public Seminar
Wednesday, April 16, 12 noon, 8108 Social Science
The Havens Center Spring 2008 Visiting Scholars Program and the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Cancer Health Disparities Initiative present
NANCY KRIEGER is Professor of Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, Associate Director of the Harvard Center for Society and Health, and Co-Director of the HSPH Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender, and Health. She received her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. Dr. Krieger is a social epidemiologist, with a background in biochemistry, philosophy of science, and the history of public health, combined with 25 years of experience as an activist in issues involving social justice, science, and health. Her work focuses on three aspects of social inequalities in health: (a) etiologic studies on the determinants of health inequities, (b) methods for improving monitoring of social inequalities in health, and (c) development of theoretical frameworks, including ecosocial theory, to guide work on understanding and addressing health disparities. Examples of her empirical work include: research on racism, discrimination and health, including blood pressure and birth outcomes; socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in breast cancer; and research on appropriate measures of social class (individual, household, and neighborhood), especially for population-based monitoring of social inequalities in health and also for studying women, gender, class, and health. Other work concerns history and politics of epidemiology and public health, including study and critique of theories that epidemiologists and others use to explain population patterns of health, disease, and well-being. Professor Krieger is editor of Embodying Inequality: Epidemiologic Perspectives (Baywood Press, 2004) and co-editor, with Glen Margo, of AIDS: The Politics of Survival (Baywood Publishers, 1994), and, with Elizabeth Fee, of Women’s Health, Politics, and Power: Essays on Sex/Gender, Medicine, and Public Health (Baywood Publishers, 1994). In 1994 she co-founded, and still chairs, the Spirit of 1848 Caucus of the American Public Health Association, which is concerned with the links between social justice and public health.
READINGS:
Krieger N. Epidemiology and the web of causation: has anyone seen the spider? Soc
Krieger N. Theories for social epidemiology in the 21st century: an ecosocial
Krieger N. What’s level got to do with it? – proximal, distal, and the politics
Krieger N. Ways of asking and ways of living: reflections on the 50th anniversary