Course Description: The environments where we live, learn, work, play, and pray shape our day-to-day lives and long-term health and wellbeing in complex ways. Dr. Anthony Iton, Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities at the California Endowment, famously said “tell me your zip code and I’ll tell you your life expectancy.” This course lays a theoretical and empirical foundation for students interested in understanding how social factors (poverty, community context, work environments, etc.) affect the health and wellbeing of racial and ethnic minorities and other vulnerable populations in the United States. Students will develop tools to analyze epidemiological patterns of health status by race/ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status. In addition, students will learn how structural factors (racism, segregation, gender hierarchies, dominant cultural norms within health systems and organizations, and their intersections) contribute to health disparities, and how policies and practices inside and outside of the healthcare system are advancing health equity.