Social Disparities and Health
A pressing policy problem in the United States and other countries is the extraordinary pattern of inequality in the health of children and adults. These health disparities are widespread and not easily explained. Faculty in IPR’s Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health are forging new paths to create better understanding of, and improvement in, human health and social outcomes. They recognize that such an effort requires complex modeling of the interplay between biological processes and environmental influences. To this end, they coalesce around the Center’s mission to:
- bring together the social, life, and biomedical sciences to understand the origins, consequences, and policy solutions for contemporary health inequalities in the United States; and
- examine how broad social, race/ethnic, and economic disparities "get under the skin" and affect human development and physical health.
A Message from Thomas McDade, Program Chair and C2S Director
Working Papers
Recently published articles and working papers in this program area include:
Katherine Amato, Gregory Miller, Christopher Kuzawa, et al.. 2020. The Human Microbiome and Health Inequities (WP-20-44).
Thomas McDade and Stephanie Koning. 2020. Early Origins of Socioeconomic Inequalities in Chronic Inflammation: Evaluating the Contributions of Low Birth Weight and Short Breastfeeding (WP-20-41).
Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt. 2020. The Opioid Epidemic Was Not Caused by Economic Distress But by Factors That Could Be More Rapidly Addressed (WP-20-36).
Faculty Experts
Faculty come from the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, biomedical sciences, pediatrics, and preventive medicine, in addition to other social science and medical fields.
Events
How Stress Gets Under the Skin
by Robin Nusslock, Associate Professor of Psychology and IPR Fellow
Diagnostic Reform as Global Health Policymaking
by Steven Epstein, John C. Shaffer Professor in the Humanities, Chair of Sociology, and IPR Associate