Health inequities and disparities between Black and white Americans are complex with many relevant factors that include:

• The impact of policies based on systemic structural racism, such as underdeveloped segregated neighborhoods that affect the quality of the physical environment, employment opportunities, and convenient access to superior schools, nutritious foods, and healthcare facilities.
• Doctors’ lack of knowledge and familiarity with life and culture in Black underdeveloped communities, which may limit rapport and treatment planning.
• Healthcare workers’ implicit and explicit biases toward Black patients that influence treatment recommendations.

Health In The Neighborhood is an experiential elective offered on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and select evenings during the spring semester.

The course is composed of discussions with students and faculty, sessions in the Martin Luther King Neighborhood, and class discussions at the medical school. Students will keep reflective on-line logs of their weekly experiences.  

At the conclusion of the course, students will have an understanding of the different ways that social forces operate within the country, region, and the profession to sustain health inequities, and disparities, and have thought about methods to counter these trends.

Beginning Spring 2021, IDM560 incorporates the primary objectives of IDM521, Clinical Practice of Medicine; this means that if you are enrolled in IDM560 you will participate in preceptor sessions tailored to the course objectives, practice sessions in the Clinical Competency Center, and the CPM mid-term and final Clinical Skills exams.