The first section of the course has introduced you to key concepts, research methods, and theoretical approaches in medical anthropology and public health that shape research and public discourse on health disparities.  This paper is designed for you to apply these concepts, methods, and approaches to the analysis of contemporary news articles and reports on health disparities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the paper, you will select a population group of interest to you and examine how COVID-19 is exacerbating or producing health disparities for them. You may use the conventional U.S. census racial/ ethnic categories (e.g., Hispanic, Black/African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, or White) or you may wish to examine subgroups within them (e.g., Latinx immigrants, Chinese Americans., Navajo tribal members). You can choose to explore social categories beyond race/ethnicity like socioeconomic status, gender, gender identity, sexuality, disability, or immigration status or even intersectional identities (e.g., LGBTQ youth). Looking beyond these identity categories, you could explore how rural folks or older Americans are being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, or how COVID-related disparities are playing out in a specific geographic location (e.g., Baltimore). I’ve presented these options, but please choose a topic of particular interest to you.

Once you have selected your population group, conduct a simple google search (or use another search engine) using key search terms like “COVID-19” or “health disparities” and the name of your group. I would like you to find and analyze at least five stories or research reports focused on that group. In your analysis, consider the following questions, emerging from our readings:

What terminology do the authors use to describe health disparities/inequalities/inequities, and is their choice of terminology significant?

Do the authors take more of an ethnocentric or culturally relative approach to describing the circumstances of this population group?

Which (if any) social determinants of health do the authors describe as contributing factors to disparities? Do they go “upstream” enough in identifying these factors? What social determinants/structural influences do you think merit further investigation?

Which of the following frameworks do the authors draw from in explaining COVID-19 risk (even if inadvertently): behavioral, cultural, or structural? How do you know?

How do the authors describe health care systems articulating with COVID-related disparities?

Does the article address the role of the health care safety net in buffering the effects of COVID-19 disparities? Or does it describe other emergent forms of social support?

Do the authors grapple with questions about whose responsibility health care is (the personal responsibility of the individual versus the role of the government)? If so, which perspective does it favor?

How do the authors present information/data (in more of a quantitative or qualitative form)? Do they present numbers, charts, and tables, or draw from stories that foreground lived experience? Is their presentation style effective?

Do the authors provide the proper cultural, political, and historical context to truly understand the topics presented?

What theoretical approaches from public health or anthropology (e.g., behavior change, intersectionality, critical race, cultural interpretive, critical medical, embodiment of inequality) might be most useful if you were to examine this topic more academically?

You do not necessary need to go through and answer these questions one by one; rather, they are meant to stimulate your thinking about the topic through the lens of this class. In fact, you could choose to center your entire analysis on just one of these questions or several of them. In your analysis, please provide evidence from the articles/reports to back up your assertions (e.g., choice of terminology, data presented), quoting directly from them. I would also like you revisit the course readings and draw from them to support your points, citing them appropriately.

Your paper should be structured with an introduction, body paragraphs (analyzing the content of the articles/reports), and a conclusion. You can choose how you structure your analysis (organizing it by key questions addressed, themes emerging from the articles/reports, or by article) but make sure that you have organized it intentionally and logically. Your introduction should clearly lay out the structure of the paper, and your conclusion should synthesize your analysis and perhaps suggest productive future research directions. Use of first person (“I argue…”) is not only acceptable in Anthropology, but is strongly encouraged. (I realize this is quite different for many of you, especially those of you coming from more biomedical backgrounds.)

Please also include a bibliography, following the Chicago Manual of Style (Links to an external site.), 17th edition. References should be compiled in one list at the end and formatted as follows:

Book

Buchbinder, Mara, Rivkin-Fish, Michele, and Rebecca L. Walker. 2016. Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice: New Conversations Across the Discipline. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Book Chapter

Weber, Lynn. 2006. “Reconstructing the Landscape of Health Disparities Research.” In Gender, Race, Class, and Health: Intersectional Approaches, edited by A.J. Schultz and L. Mullings, 21-59. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Journal Article

Dressler, William, Kathryn Oths, and Clarence Gravlee. 2005. “Race and Ethnicity in Public Health Research: Models to Explain Health Disparities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 231-252.

Online Article

Seervai, Shanoor. 2017. “How Hurricane Maria Worsened Puerto Rico’s Health Care Crisis.” The Commonwealth Fund website, December 18. Accessed August 29, 2019. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/other-publication/2017/dec/how-hurricane-maria-worsened-puerto-ricos-health-care (Links to an external site.)

Papers should be 3-5 pages, double-spaced, 12-point standard font (Times New Roman, Calibri, or Garamond), with 1” margins.

The rubric for the assignment is as follows:

Introduction [10 points] Give an overview of your paper topic with a clear thesis statement describing how the paper is organized

Analysis [30 points] Perform an analysis of the articles/reports, grounding it in course readings and examples from them

Conclusion [10] Summarize and synthesize your key points and suggest future research directions (as relevant)

Organization [10] Ensure that the paper is clearly organized with smooth transitions between paragraphs

Writing Style [15] Make sure that the paper has good sentence structure and appropriate word choice, does not contain incomplete or run-on sentences, and is spell-checked