Why Is Being Black More Dangerous Than Smoking? Rethinking How We Teach Social Determinants of Health

06-03-2020 20:34

“Social determinants of health” has become an increasingly popular phrase in recent years, and current evidence supports the idea that social factors have a greater impact on health than biological or genetic factors. However, there has been little change in the undergraduate medical education paradigm with regards to establishing more formal guidance on how to teach about the relation between social factors and health. One particular social determinant of health—a patient’s race—is mentioned frequently in medical education, but with a heavy emphasis on supposed biological or genetic differences between different races. Medical students are taught that black patients should have different settings on spirometry machines, different calculations for measuring their kidney function, and should be prescribed different antihypertensive medications. There is less emphasis on how the social experience of African-Americans affects their health, or how social factors can affect physical health and even genetic expression. Inadequate housing, poverty, and bias often receive a cursory mention compared to the amount of time spent educating medical students on the rarest of diseases. I will present a provocative, experiential curriculum that we have used to paradoxically use the biological focus of medical schools to teach about the social determinants of health.

Author(s):Bonzo Reddick & Kamal Mohiuddin
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