AP/SOSC 2150 6.00
Aging and Caregiving
This course examines the ways environmental factors intersect with social and economic inequalities to produce significant health disparities, particularly for low-income, racial, and Indigenous communities. Specifically, the course focuses on contemporary themes in environmental justice literature, namely environmental racism, gender and class disparities associated with climate change and environmental degradation, the politics of toxic exposure, toxic waste and e-waste, water access, sanitation, issues surrounding nutritional security, and the principles of environmental justice and equity. The frameworks and approaches used in the environmental health justice movement are also explored.
Through this course, students will gain a better understanding of environmental health and illness as it relates to broader social, economic, political, cultural and ecological factors, as well as the diversity of local and global movements that focus on environmental health justice and activism. Students will study key concepts, theories, and models used in the field of environmental health and justice studies. The material covered in this course serves as a broad, general introduction to themes and issues in environmental health and justice that can be explored in more depth in upper-level courses in the program.