While exploring these questions, we will also consider how social scientists, epidemiologists, public health experts, and doctors address them -- how they use theory to understand them and how they make "causal inferences" based on observational or experimental data. However, students are not expected to have in-depth knowledge of social science methods or statistics. The readings span the medical, public health, and social science literatures, and they reflect both qualitative and quantitative approaches. In many ways, this course serves as an introduction to the field of public health.
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We will briefly review the burden of illness and death in the U.S., touching on the costs, family effects, and implications for people's well-being and suffering. We will also review the leading causes of death and how they vary by certain socio-demographic attributes. We will note geographic variation in illness and mortality and also the relevance of circumstances of birth, (including in utero exposures, birthweight, birth order, parental occupation, etc.) to life-long health. In short, we will introduce the basic bio-social facts to be explored in the course. And we will introduce the tension between individualistic and collective perspectives on medical care. We will in particular consider the case of suicide and the extent to which it reflects individual decision-making or collective constraints.
http://christakis.med.harvard.edu/pages/teaching/subnav/podcasts_current.html