As of 2015, one in ten Americans do not have health coverage; American life expectancy, at 79 years old, is four years worse than Italy.

What factors are responsible for our state of health and wellbeing, as individuals and societies?  How does inequality with respect to socioeconomic status relate to health inequity?  What are the additional effects of race and ethnicity? What can we do as individuals, communities, and as a nation to eliminate inequality?  Can the Affordable Care Act help us eliminate health inequity?  How do we compare with other countries and what can we learn from them? These questions form the central concerns of this 8 credit program.  We will be addressing these questions in the larger social context of increasing inequality in the U.S. in the past several decades. Our learning community will work as individuals and in small groups to understand what inequality means and how where we stand socially affects our health in every way, from our circumstances of birth to our life expectancy and mode of death.