Health Disparities in Society

Content
You are required to write one critical paper on the topic of your choice related to the class material. The paper should be a critical assessment of a major trend or argument in the literature on health and medical sociology. Your paper should thoroughly address the topic as well as provide your own critical perspective on the topic. You may choose any topic covered in the course or any other relevant topic.
You can choose to go more in-depth with a topic that we covered in this course. Or, alternatively, there are a lot of sub-topics that we did not have time to cover. A list of suggestions is provided below.

The critical paper should include a summary of the scholarly literature on your topic using academic sources as references and the critical evaluation of that literature. This does not mean your personal musings on the topic or a summary of your personal experiences as they relate to the topic. Rather, you should provide a pointed critique of literature. For example, what are these studies missing? What are the limitations of the literature? What could be done to improve the studies you read? Etc.

This is meant to be a rather open-ended assignment so that you can explore a topic in the literature on health and medical sociology that is particularly interesting to you. Please talk to me if you have any questions/concerns about your topic choice.

Technical Details
• 4-6 pages total double-spaced (not including references)
• Times New Roman 12-point font with 1-inch margins
• You must cite at least 5 peer reviewed academic works (no encyclopedias, news reports, or popular sociology) in your paper to build and support your argument. Only 2 of the citations may be from the class reading list. Also, you should not include any of the documentaries from the course as a citation as these are journalistic in nature and not scientific texts.
• Your citations must be listed in a bibliography on a separate page and properly cited throughout the paper (in APA or ASA format – see the plagiarism guide on the course webpage for more details).
• Plagiarism will be taken very seriously, and all papers will be submitted to TurnItIn.com for an originality and an AI-text generation assessment. Please make sure you properly cite your work, and please see the policy in the syllabus on the acceptable uses of AI generated text.

Critical Paper Grade Breakdown (% of final grade) Summary/Literature Review (7%)
• 2-3 pages
• A good literature will be thorough and cover the necessary/relevant literature.
• You should not give a summary of each of the five (or more) articles that you include, rather you should provide an overall summary of the trends in the literature.
Critique (8%)
• 2-3 pages
• A good critique of the literature will be focused and provide specific criticisms of both the methodological and substantive problems in the literature. You should highlight both gaps/problems in the literature, as well as suggestions for how this literature could be improved.
• You should not provide a critique of each of the five (or more) articles that you include, rather you should provide an overall critique of the literature.

Grammar Writing Style (5%)
• A good critical paper will use standard English throughout and use a writing style in keeping with what is expected at the university-level. Please carefully edit your work before turning it in.
Citations (5%)
• All works cited (at least 5) in the write-up should come from peer-reviewed scientific journals or books, and they should be properly cited throughout the article and in a references page using APA or ASA citation format.

Potential Topics
• Any of the course topics listed in the syllabus
• An in-depth analysis of the academic literature of a particular social category in the U.S., for example: Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, the middle class, the working poor, LGBTQ+ issues, etc.
• Social factors related to health for a specific disease profile
• Mental health disparities
• Health disparities and racism
• Health outcomes and environmental justice
• Access to food resources and food systems
• The intersection of race/class/gender in health outcomes (intersectionality)
• Family configurations and health outcomes
• Rural versus urban health dynamics
• Social health issues related to childhood and the life course
• Medical insurance and health outcomes
• Health care reform
• Health care in organizational sociology
• The politics of health disparities and health policy
• Income inequality and health outcomes
• Health outcomes in a global, comparative perspective
• The implications of the Affordable Care Act for health outcomes
• Social movements and health
• Health disparities and the effects of religion
• Marital status and health
• Historical perspectives on health
• Trends in health and social factors in Texas
• Health, society, and media representations
• The workplace and health/illness rights
• Managed care systems and their implications for health
• Epigenetics and health disparities