Public Thinking and Public Health

CRN: fall: 10213; winter: 20161
Note: This 8-credit program will meet from 6 to 10 p.m. on Wednesdays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on five Saturdays each quarter (fall: Oct. 3, 17, 31, Nov. 14, Dec. 5; winter: Jan 9, 23, Feb 6, 20, March 6). First class in winter will meet in SEM 2 C1105. This program also offers an integrated study option for students seeking a total registration of 12 or more credits. See www.evergreen.edu/eveningandweekend/integratedstudies for details.

The idea of health is not as simple as it appears. It is clearly more than the absence of disease. The idea is applicable to the mental and physical state of individuals and to entire societies, the oceans, wildlife, the planet, as well as to communication, governance, and public discourse. What is this transcendent quality called health?

In this program we explore the concept of health, how that concept varies over time and place, and the factors that affect health including economic and other social circumstances. If human-built resources, relationships, and social capital are important to the attainment of health and well-being, can we allow access to these resources to depend on social class? Since humans can participate in and direct the governance of society, why are societal resources, both material and otherwise, increasingly scarce for lower-income people? What are people, organizations, and governments doing to address this?

Answers to these questions involve civic intelligence — loosely defined as how "smart" societies are in their collective approach to shared challenges. In this program, we will examine the characteristics of civic intelligence and the opportunities for developing it, especially through new information and communication technologies. These investigations are particularly important as we face the complex, unpredictable, and potentially catastrophic challenges of the 21st century. Through writing, discussion, films, guest speakers, and workshops we will explore the hypotheses that improving civic intelligence can lead to better public health and that improving public health can lead to better civic intelligence.

During fall quarter, students will read texts on health equity, social capital and civic intelligence. We will also focus on the Liberating Voices pattern language as an expression of civic intelligence. Students will work in groups to analyze the nature, success, and failure of past civic responses to historical instances of grave health and social crises, including the London Broad Street Cholera Epidemic, industrialism and social exclusion in the early 20th Century, and the 1917 Flu Pandemic.

In winter quarter, students will work in groups to carry out in-depth examination of a current health crisis and its social context. Each group will develop and present a comprehensive initiative that addresses the crisis, demonstrates the contribution of civic intelligence, and works to maximize the equity of health and well-being.