Purpose: Rather than solely focusing on individual casual factors, structural, systemic, and community-level factors play a powerful role in the well-being of community members.
The purpose of this assignment is to help you consider how myriad upstream factors contribute to the development of social equity and inequity. In this paper, you will need to identify one individual-level social or health inequity and describe how historical, socio-political, features of the built environment, legislative policies, and structural and systemic factors have contributed to this issue. You also need to identify potential evidence-informed and strengths-based strategies for addressing this inequity. These solutions must target at least one root cause contributing to inequity.
Possible topics for investigation include: disparities in African American’s female-identified individuals rates of premature births, LGBTQI individuals experiences of social isolation in older adulthood, or high rates of opioid abuse in low-income individuals in rural communities. This assignment is intended to be a starting place for thinking about the interconnectedness between the structural and the personal and to center the importance of community-level strategies to achieving equity and social justice.
Paper Format: Present a graduate-level paper that has an introduction, brief description of your social issue including the population impacted and associated disparities compared to other demographic groups. In the body of the paper, describe three macro-level or upstream determinants of this issue. This can include social policies, features of the built environment, and community-level factors. DO NOT describe individual-level indicators such as mental health diagnoses or personal health behaviors. In your conclusion, describes tangible evidence-informed strategies to effect change at the community-level and address inequities in health outcomes among your population of interest. It is critical that you connect these strategies to your personal conceptualizations of social justice and the Social Work code of ethics. Throughout the paper, please demonstrate (and reference where appropriate) your knowledge of the required readings, lectures and discussions. This is research must be informed by the extant literature.
Length: 3-4 pages, double spaced (excluding the reference page and figure), typed, using a 12-point font size and one-inch margins.
Referencing Style: Follow the formatting style as described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
