Section outline

  • Lecture: Multi-level etiologies of health in diverse populations, Part 5: Social policy

    Many policies regulating areas such as housing, income security, education, criminal justice, environmental safety, or discrimination strongly influence health and health disparities, even though health was not the primary or original focus of these policies.  In other words, the most important policies affecting health may not be health policies at all, but rather policies that shape the multilevel determinants of health. Health researchers with multilevel frameworks are rapidly focusing research attention to formally evaluate how these policies influence health and health inequalities and provide evidence to policymakers about unanticipated health consequences of diverse policies. In this class we will discuss examples of such policies and approaches to rigorously evaluating the health impacts of policies.

    Faculty: Rita Hamad

    Location (Access restricted to registered students): Zoom URL

    • Session Slides:

    • rhamad - Epi 222 social policies lecture, 9 Feb 2021 File

    • Session Audio/Video Recording (Access restricted to registered students):

    • Watch -Live Lecture Media Resource
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only

    • Required Reading:

    • An analysis of the Moving to Opportunity Study, using experimental data to document the impact of neighborhood on health.
    • A paper investigating the impact of school desegregation on reproductive health outcomes using difference-in-difference models.
    • Collin 2020 - Short-term effects of EITC on mental health and health behaviors File
      Not available unless: Your ID number contains 02
    • An investigation using national data sets of the impact of the Earned Impact Tax Credit on mental health and health behaviors.

    • Optional Readings:

    • Assignment:

      Please post to the forum by 8:45am on the day of class

      · Identify a policy that is not usually intended to be a health policy but that you think may have important health implications.

      · Describe why an evaluation of that policy is informative (e.g., determining effects of the policy, or primarily a test of hypothesized mediators).

      · Specify the outcomes and populations you think most affected or least affected by the policy.

      · Propose a study design to evaluate the policy.

      · Describe biggest challenge to implementing and drawing inferences about the impact of the policy on health.