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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — California State University Bakersfield is introducing a new health equity course for Fall 2023. The course will teach students about social and cultural issues surrounding health care access and outcome disparities.
The public health program is fairly new to CSUB, just having started back in 2021. A professor in the program, Andrea Lopez, says the goal is not only to teach students about health disparities and inequities, but also how to strategize and come up with solutions to achieve health equity.
“Health equity,” Lopez explained, “is the idea that everybody deserves the opportunity to be as healthy as they can be. We know that some groups face more obstacles than other groups in order to be able to achieve health.”
Lopez says they plan to begin the course talking about social determinants of health, such as housing, transportation, and location. She goes on to add that students in the CSUB public health program will also learn about health disparities in different groups, and talk about what solutions they have seen work in other communities, using that knowledge to discuss whether and how those solutions might be incorporated into our own community.
The health equity course is not just for CSUB students who have declared public health as a major. The class is open to all students as part of the university’s general education curriculum, a move Lopez supports.
“I think that it’s really important that students have that opportunity to collaborate early on in their careers, because in order to achieve health equity, we really need a multi-sector approach,” said Lopez. “We need people from all different fields talking about it, working together, and collaborating together so that we are able to address these issues.”
Local health officials also think the new course offering will be a benefit to both the students and the broader community.
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