CHID 250H: Politics, philosophy, and public health
Winter 2024
The basics
Instructor: Jessie Seiler, MPH, PhD; jseiler@uw.edu
Meetings: Wednesday and Friday, 3:30 to 5:20, Loew Hall 101 (but don't worry, we are NOT taking all that time up on Friday afternoons, it's too dark and cold and rainy to stay in class that late on a Friday)
Office hours: TBD
Best way to get in touch with me: Email! Please don’t use Canvas to get in touch with me, I’ll never see it, but I check my email way too much and will typically respond quickly if it’s within workday hours (9 am to 5 pm).
Course summary
Some of the most critical challenges of our current era are related to public health. Whether we are considering police and state violence, COVID-19, racism, or oppression more broadly, all of these emergencies cause poor health outcomes, often for the most marginalized people in our society. These issues are all political, with causes that can be traced through histories of a desire for wealth and power. A thorough understanding of how to address them must also be rooted in philosophy, as many of our epistemological and ethical frameworks for public health work are currently not sufficient to help us navigate these crises. This course will explore political and philosophical angles on selected current public health emergencies, including police and state violence; the intersection of anti-Black racism and weight stigma; our response to the COVID-19 pandemic; violence motivated by transphobia and homophobia; and the structural oppression inherent to most of our country's drug policies.
Course structure
Most of our sessions will be seminars, meaning that students will learn through facilitated discussion, guided by a series of assigned readings related to topics that will change each week. Much of the work outside of class will be in preparing for class, including readings and regular reflections. Students will be asked to make decisions about how they would like to be evaluated. All readings will be available on Canvas.
Learning objectives
By the end of this class, students will be able to:
- Define and describe the social and political determinants of health
- Describe the differential effects of the American social and political context on people with marginalized and multiply marginalized identities
- Critique our response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies using their understanding of our current intellectual context
Assignments
Note: grade percentages are tentative!
Participation: 30%
Student participation is an essential component of any successful learning environment, and this is particularly true of seminars. Please come prepared to engage one another and discuss readings and films. Participation grades will reflect engagement and active listening. In-person attendance is strongly encouraged, but in the event of illness or other extenuating circumstances (see next section), we will come to an alternative arrangement. Completing the pre-class survey will also count toward the participation grade, as will completing the participation/progress surveys, which are due each Friday at 5 pm.
Preparation for class: 40%
Because the seminar structure relies on students putting some time and thought into the readings before each Monday class, students will turn in short reflections on the readings. The format and content will vary based on the reading and each student’s inclinations, but may include a paragraph responding to the reading, questions for exploration with the class during seminar, or other possibilities. These will be due each Monday at 10 am and are intended to help students prepare for class.
Once a week, either Monday or Wednesday, students will also turn in five questions or concerns that they’d like to bring up for discussion in class.
Midterm and final exam: 15% each
Format TBD (see section of full syllabus on student choices), but this will not be a traditional, sit-down-and-write-in-class type of exam. It will involve doing some reflection on what you’ve learned, and you’ll be able to use the participation/progress surveys from throughout the quarter to do that. In the past, most students have opted for oral exams.
So just to recap, in terms of what’s due regularly, I’m asking you to turn in a reading reflection each Monday morning, a participation/progress survey every Friday afternoon, and a list of reading questions once a week. Those should all be pretty quick to fill out, though I hope you’ll take all the time you need/want to reflect on the prompts.
Grading
Since this is a seminar and I’d prefer you to have time to focus on understanding the readings and preparing to talk about them in class, we’re going to use more qualitative than quantitative grades. This means that while you will get a letter grade at the end of the quarter, I won’t be grading individual assignments, including your midterm and final. However, I will be giving extensive feedback, and you’ll be reflecting on your own work too – that’s what the participation/progress surveys are for. You will use those to give yourself grades for participation, for preparation, and for your midterm and final; those grades will be the basis of your final grade in the class, with potentially some adjustment from me. We’ll talk through your self-assessment periodically throughout the quarter, and if this method of grading makes you feel anxious or worried, then we’ll figure out something that will work better for you.