Psychology 39J, Section 1
Unnatural Causes . . . Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (2 units, LG)
Professor Darlene Francis, Dr. Emily Jacobs and Professor Katherine Saxton
Friday 12:00-2:00, 3105 Tolman Hall, CCN: 74080

This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the large and disturbing socio-economic and racial/ethnic disparities in health . . . and search for their causes. Growing evidence suggests that there is more to health than bad habits, no access to medicine or unlucky genes! The social circumstances in which we are born, live and work become 'biologically embedded' and put us at risk for stroke, heart disease, asthma, diabetes, poor mental health and academic achievement. This seminar will explore why some populations get sicker more often in the first place, i.e. the role of inequality, racism, poverty, segregation and neglect in breeding disease and despair. We hope to attract students from diverse academic backgrounds interested in understanding and exploring the interface between the social and biological worlds.
This seminar may be used to satisfy the Social and Behavioral Sciences breadth requirement in Letters and Science.

Darlene Francis is trained as a neurobiologist. Her basic research interests focus on understanding how social factors become biologically embedded to affect health and well-being.


Emily Jacobs is a cognitive neuroscientist. Her research explores individual differences in cognition from a genes and hormones perspective.

Kat Saxton is an epidemiologist studying the effects of stress and social place (in childhood) on development and gene expression.