About this Guide
This guide will get you started "gathering information" for the 2018 Public Health Hackathon with information resources related to public health and technology needs in the local community. It is not a guide of scholarly sources, but rather a starting point for web based information. You do not need a BC Student ID to use this guide, nor any resources herein. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of resources, rather a selection provided to get you familiar with the issues at hand. Good luck and thank you for participating in making our community a healthier place for all.
Public Health and Social Justice at Bakersfield College - PBHS B23
The PBHS B23 course web page includes a review of health inequity issues, a including Student presentations that focus on definitions, background, and ideas for Hack-a-thon projects.
https://www.publichealthbaron.info/social-justice-and-health-pbhs-23.html
Public Health and Social Justice (PBHS B23) Professor Sarah Baron and her students at Bakersfield College defines Health Equity as those differences in population health that can be traced to unequal economic and social conditions and are systemic and avoidable – and thus inherently unjust and unfair.
Most of us can readily see how air pollution and toxic waste might harm health. But social structures can also get under the skin and disrupt our biology. Epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot put it this way: "Real people have problems with their lives as well as with their organs. Those social problems affect their organs. In order to improve public health, we need to improve society." Tackling health inequities requires widening our lens to bring into view the ways in which jobs, working conditions, education, housing, social inclusion, and even political power influence individual and community health. When societal resources are distributed unequally by class and by race, population health will be distributed unequally along those lines as well. One way to understand what Marmot calls the “causes of the causes” is to ask new questions:
- Conventional question: How can we promote healthy behavior?
- Health equity question: How can we target dangerous conditions and reorganize land use and transportation policies to
- ensure healthy spaces and places?
- Conventional: How can we reduce disparities in the distribution of disease and illness?
- Health equity: How can we eliminate inequities in the distribution of resources and power that shape health outcomes?
- Conventional: What social programs and services are needed to address health disparities?
- Health equity: What types of institutional and social changes are necessary to tackle health inequities?
- Conventional: How can individuals protect themselves against health disparities?
- Health equity: What kinds of community organizing and alliance building are necessary to protect communities?
Source: www.unaturalcauses.org
Welcome to Health Inequity: Health and Social Justice Hackathon
About the Hackathon
Bakersfield College will host an open competition on the Panorama Campus in which event organizers will gather information about technology needs in the local community related to public health and provide this information to various competing teams. The teams will then submit a group presentation of a technical prototype to solve the issue and a community impact report showing how the prototype will help address a community public health need.
The goals of the competition are to increase awareness of public health, augment student learning, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, improve community and industry partnerships, and further develop local talent capable of meeting local needs.
The 2018 HEALTH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE HACKATHON
Will take place on April 12th – April 14th, 2018
At Bakersfield College Campus
2018 BC Innovates Hackathon
