Syllabus

Master of Social Work

SSW 605 Social Determinants of Health

Credits - 3

Description

Type of Course Enrichment

Elective Course

Overview

This course, “Social Determinants of Health: Inequality, Health, and Healing”, is designed to introduce students to the various components of the social determinants of health and how those components contribute to the inequality in the distribution of health and its fundamental social causes. This course will provide an introductory examination of the health disparities among vulnerable populations. Further exploration through evidence-based research, students will be able to develop a basic understanding of the wealth/health relationship, how class and ethnicity have an impact on morbidity and mortality. The goal of this course is to understand the patterns of inequality in health and health care as a social structure that contributes to the relevance of understanding social determinants of health and shaping appropriate interventions for clients.

Materials

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

School of Social Work Program Outcomes:

Graduates of the UNE SSWO will demonstrate knowledge, skills, and leadership in the following:

1. Demonstrates ethical and professional behavior.
2. Advance human rights and social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
3. Engage in anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in practice.
4. Engage in practice-informed research and research-informed practice.
5. Engage in policy practice.
6. Engage with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
7. Assess individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
8. Intervene with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
9. Evaluate practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

Course Objectives:

Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

1. Analyze how a specific agency or program aims to reduce health disparities, including the relationship between wealth and health, and the impact of class/ethnicity on morbidity/mortality. Program Outcomes 1 & 2 (As measured by Discussion, Interview Assignment Questions, and Interview Final Paper)
2. Describe the conception of the various pathways related to social determinants of health from inequity to its physiological and psychosocial embodiment. Program Outcomes 4 & 6 (As measured by Discussion, Interview Assignment Questions, and Interview Final Paper)
3. Recommend appropriate methods for enacting social change based on the social determinants identified in a specific community. Program Outcome 3 (As measured by discussion and photo storybook assignment)
4. Evaluate social- and health-preventive policies, based on population-based research. Program Outcome 6 (As measured by Discussion, Interview Assignment Questions, and Interview Final Paper)
5. Design an agency-based instrument to assess the impact of SDOH factors on service utilization and outcomes. Program Outcome 5 (As measured by Interview Assignment Final)

Assignments

Discussion Forums (Includes Participation)

Discussion Board: The entire collection of discussions in the main course room.

Discussion Forum: The individual forum (venue) for each question.

Discussion Question: The actual question within the discussion forum. Each week there are discussion questions within the main classroom discussion board area. The discussion question requires an initial response by the end of Saturday, midnight, ET. However, feel free to post your work earlier in the learning week if you choose. The goal is for everyone to be actively engaged in this conversation and participate over at least three different days during the class-week totaling at least 3 replies or comments in addition to the initial response. This is a minimum requirement and does not mean maximum points will be earned.

What are initial responses?

Initial responses are those that you post as a direct response to a discussion forum and must include at least 400 words and two integrated/cited sources; one from the text and one from a scholarly journal article. The use of APA style is required (6th Edition APA Manual). Note, there are different types of discussion questions each week – these questions are scholarly discussion question(s) where you will focus on demonstrating excellent writing skills, critical thinking, and reflection and integration of course materials. The initial responses are due on Saturdays.

Remember (Regular Discussion Question)!

• 400 Words
• APA format
• 1 source from text
• 1 source from journal article

What are responses?

Responses are posts that demonstrate that you are responding to another student. These are generally what you think of as “participation” posts. You are expected to actively participate in the forums each week. To actively participate in the forums means to respond to anyone on at least 3 different days per week. You can respond to one student on three different days, or 20 students on three different days! You can respond to students in one forum only, or spread out your responses among any forums assigned for the week! However, what is important is that you are actively present in the forums responding to other students on three different days. Your initial posting does not count towards responses to others.

Responses to others must add substantively to the discussion by building upon classmates’ ideas or posing critical questions to further the discussion. For example, a posting of “I agree with what people are saying” is not sufficient. What is considered sufficient is initiating further discussion; promoting further thought; providing critical or integrative dialogue; providing effective support or encouragement; challenging by showing supporting literature or other documentation, and/or self-reflecting regarding the topic.

The weekly points available for the discussion board include participation. Your instructor will review the weekly contributions in the discussion forums by taking note of each of the criteria listed in the “Discussion Forum Rubric”.

Assignments

Reducing Health Disparities Interview Assignment Questions (Due Week 3): For this assignment, the student will be expected to generate a list of interview questions that will be submitted to the professor for review before conducting the actual interview. The student must include exactly 10 questions, not including profile questions (type of work, position, years in the field, etc.). The questions must be open-ended.

Some interview sample questions to use as a reference as you craft your questions are:

• What does the interviewee think contributes to their own, agency’s, and overall program’s social inequality?
• In an attempt to address those social inequalities, what is the conceptual model that they are operating on and how they expect their method of approach to address social inequality?
• What are the limitations or benefits to this conceptual model in achieving goals?
• And many others! Remember, the goal is to craft questions that focuses on the elimination of social inequalities that directly impact health at one of the levels of intervention mentioned above.

The assignment can be formatted in any way, however must include an APA title page, use 12pt Times New Roman font and must be double-spaced throughout.

Students must receive feedback on their questions before they can conduct the interviews. However, it is strongly encouraged that at the start of this course that you plan/schedule your interview well in advance out of respect as the professionals’ schedule may be busy. And, as such, it may be difficult to coordinate with your schedule. Please give yourself ample time to plan for this assignment and have an interviewee in place well before the due date of this particular assignment.

Reducing Health Disparities Interview Assignment Final Paper (Due Week 6): After you have crafted their interview questions, received approval from their instructor of the questions, you can conduct the interview. For your final paper, you will critically think about and analyze the interview that was conducted with an individual who is working in an agency or program aimed at the elimination of social inequalities that directly impact health. An examination of these social inequalities may include but are not limited to substandard housing, racism, social exclusion, sexism, racism either at the local, state, or nationally through a federal agency or professional organization. Typically, this paper results in a comprehensive document containing approximately 12-15 pages, not including the title and reference page.

The following sections must be included in this final paper:

1. Demographics/Background Information of the Person You Interviewed (1 page)

This section will include information about the individual the student has selected to interview. The professional selected will be from an agency or program aimed at eliminating social inequalities that directly impact health at varying levels of intervention. Varying levels of intervention may include one of the following but are not limited to personal care, program design or implementation, research, policy-making, and funding. Within this paper, you are to include a description of the interviewee’s program, research, policy, and funding background. For example,how the agency is funded, who do they support, financial expenditures, individuals impacted. Basically covering all facets of the agency selected in a comprehensive way.

2. Interview Questions Review (2 pages)

This section will highlight the interview questions asked and the answer(s) received. This section is to be written in narrative form and using first person perspective is acceptable. Please do not include the entire interview, just the relevant questions and answers that you will be discussing in your paper.

3. An Analysis of Responses (2 pages)

In this section, you will critically analyze the responses received from each question (please label or re-state the questions) and share their thoughts on what was said. To simply state, “I agree with this interviewee’s comments” is not sufficient. You are expected to challenge thoughts and incorporate theories/practices studied in this course.

4. A Proposal or Action of Change (2 pages)

For this section, the student is to think about alternative approaches that could be utilized when considering the scope of topics discussed during the interview. Information should be included that discusses how the action would foster social change. The written work must be supported by empirical and scholarly evidence. In other words, identify something from the interview that could inspire social change or social action.

5. Critique your proposal or action of change (2 pages)

If someone does not agree with the proposal, what would they say and why would they say it? This section must include sound evidence and support from the opposite side of the argument to encourage students to critically evaluate the proposal or action of change.

6. Highlight both positive and negative outcomes to your alternative approaches. (2 pages)

7. Explain how social workers can play a key role (2 pages)

This section must include how social workers or professionals can play a key role in supporting the proposal or action of change.

8. Final thoughts and conclusion. (2 pages)

Photo Storybook Assignment (Due Week 8)

In this assignment, you will create a photo storybook that illustrates the social inequalities that exist in your local community. Be creative with this assignment!

The expectations are for you to create a visual presentation with 20+ slides. Use your photos to illustrate a message promoting sound and relevant practices for enacting social change to the determinants you see in your community. The ultimate message should inspire your audience to become social agents for change.

You are expected to start this assignment earlier than later to avoid any hiccups that may occur if putting this assignment off to the last minute. To begin, go into your community and take pictures to use in your photo storybook. Be sure to get permission before taking any pictures in which faces will be shown.

Use the following tool to create your photo storybook and slideshow: Prezi. Alternatively, you may use Google Slides. Both of these tools are free to students. Just remember that the point is for you to provide a visualization that will help your classmates develop some awareness of the diversity (or lack thereof) in your community. 

All students are encouraged to be creative and think outside of the box. Any submissions that are lacking any of the requirements above will not earn the maximum points allotted for this final assignment.

Grading Policy

The School of Social Work uses the following grading system for all courses with the exception of field education courses. Students are expected to maintain a “B” (3.0) average over the course of their study. Students with less than a GPA of 3.0 will be placed on academic probation. Students must have an overall GPA of 3.0 in order to receive their Master’s Degree.

Your grade in this course will be determined by the following criteria:

Grade Breakdown

Assignment	Point Value	% of Grade
Discussion Questions (Includes weekly participation)	400 points – 50 points x 8 weeks (points include weekly participation and initial responses to discussion questions and are provided according to efforts and quality of work, please see rubric.)	40%
Interview Assignment Questions	100 points	10%
Interview Assignment Final Paper	300 points	30%
Photo Storybook Assignment	200 points	20%
Total:	1,000	100%

Grade Scale

Grade	Points Grade	Point Average (GPA)
A	94 – 100%	4.00
A-	90 – 93%	3.75
B+	87 – 89%	3.50
B	84 – 86%	3.00
B-	80 – 83%	2.75
C+	77 – 79%	2.50
C	74 – 76%	2.00
C-	70 – 73%	1.75
D	64 – 69%	1.00
F	00 – 63%	0.00