What is Public Health & Why Does It Matter
Subject(s): Civics
Grade: 7-8
Keywords: public health, health justice, careers, social justice, racism, racial justice, health equity
Time: 3-5 45 minute class periods
Jump Straight to Activity Plan
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Essential Questions:
- How do inequalities in other parts of society impact inequality in health?
- How do Black nurses working in public health address upstream and downstream inequalities in health?
- SWBAT describe how Black nurses fight health inequalities, using evidence from three sources, including at least 2 oral histories.
- SWBAT describe how different parts of society lead to inequalities in health using evidence from at least three sources, including 2 oral histories.
Standards:
- SS.CV.3.6-8: Compare the means by which individuals and groups change societies, promote the common good, and protect rights.
- SS.CV.1.6-8: Evaluate the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media.
- SS.CV.1.6-8: Evaluate the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media.
Introduction:
This lesson introduces students to the public health field and and then has them engage with oral histories of Black nurses working in public health. The oral histories are aimed towards helping students understand what someone who works in public health does, as well as many of the inequalities that impact the health of different populations in Chicago.
The concluding assessment asks students to apply and demonstrate their understanding of public health either through a specific local public health issue or specific proposed solution. Students do this by creating a newspaper headline or infographic, along with supporting evidence.
Pair this lesson with the lesson on social determinants of health during Jim Crow to add an historical lens to discussions of public health and public health nursing.
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Activity Plan:
1) Introductory activity: analysis of SDOH graphic, developing questions & connections to prior knowledge.
2) Practicing Upstream versus Downstream with Health Scenarios:3) Optional: Read Excerpts from Mapping Care students create their own infographic about social determinants of health for Black Chicagoans during Jim Crow.
4) Oral History Analysis: students start building connections to SDOH in their own time and place.
5) Create a Headline (or Infographic) students create a parallel infographic about an issue in SDOH in their time/place.
6) Extension: Research scavenger hunt on Black public health nurses: students do independent research, using the Mapping Care website and create a poster/slide to share
Assessments
- Health Scenarios Graphic Organizer
- Create a Public Health Headline (formative)
Materials
- River Parable Handout
- Health Scenarios Graphic Organizer
- Oral histories recordings & transcripts
- Oral histories research graphic organizer
- Create a Headline graphic organizer
- Formative Rubric
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Introductory Activity: The Parable of the Babies in the River
Tell students that you are starting the lesson today with a story.Options for how to have students engage with this story:
- Watch: River Story
- Read them the written story or have students take turns reading the story from this handout or this version with accompanying images.
- What do you think is the most important role in saving all the babies/people in the river? (remind them that we never have unlimited resources, people, money, or time, so we often have to make choices about where to focus).
- If you were living in the story, which role would you choose for yourself? Why?
Explain that this story helps us to think about solutions to problems in society in two different “buckets” - “upstream” and “downstream.”
Explain that today students will be thinking about how people’s health is decided by both upstream and downstream factors. Similarly, solutions to improve people’s health may need to be both downstream and upstream.
Some graphics that might be helpful for explaining upstream vs downstream:
Upstream vs Downstream in Public Health (Healthy High Point)
Upstream vs Downstream Factors (Mapping Care team)
Upstream vs Downstream (Benton-Franklin Health Department)
Extension opportunity: it can even be helpful to show students multiple graphics and have them notice similarities and differences. Explain that many factors can be debated as “upstream” “midstream” or “downstream.”
Extension opportunity: have students draw an upstream and downstream graphic as a class. Draw a river on the board and have students come up and add factors in different places.
Define public health for students:
“Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. This work is achieved by promoting healthy lifestyles, researching disease and injury prevention, and detecting, preventing and responding to infectious diseases. Overall, public health is concerned with protecting the health of entire populations. These populations can be as small as a local neighborhood, or as big as an entire country or region of the world.”
- CDC Foundation
Explain that people who work in public health, tend to be thinking more about “midstream” or “upstream” solutions in their approach to improving people’s health. This often includes thinking about why a person might be sick, not just because of their choices, but because of bigger social issues.
Ask students:
- Why is it important to link individual responsibility and social impacts on health within the same context?
- What happens if we think only about individual choices and not about upstream factors?
- Have you heard people in your life discuss this idea of individual choices versus societal factors before?
Practicing Upstream vs Downstream with Health Scenarios
For this exercise, students will be working in groups to practice applying the idea of upstream versus downstream to scenarios.Each group will read a Health Case Scenario and answer the following questions in the graphic organizer:
- Is the person healthy?
- What are three upstream factors that impact their health?
- What are three downstream factors that impact their health?
- If you were working in public health, which factor would you choose to address first? Why and how would you address it?
Model the exercise by reading the example Health Scenario (first page of graphic organizer) as a group and answering the questions together.
Divide students into groups and have each group read a Health Scenarios and answer the included questions.
Bring students back together. Ask each group to read their Health Scenario and repeat their answers. For each health case scenario, the class will vote whether they agree with the group’s decision and will discuss differences of opinion.
~ This would be a natural stopping point of your first day of the lesson. The students’ responses to the Health Scenarios should help you gauge their understanding of the basic principles of public health and what support/modifications they might need for the formative assessment. ~
Optional: Read Excerpts from Mapping Care
These short articles (600-700 words) from Mapping Care provide some additional scaffolding for students about public health. Each page summarizes the oral histories of multiple Black nurses who are active in different kinds of upstream initiatives about health equity.
Mapping Care - Social Determinants of Health
Mapping Care - Research and Advocacy
Mapping Care - Social Determinants of Health
Mapping Care - Research and Advocacy
Oral History Analysis
Explain that students will now be listening to the stories of some Black nurses who are working to address some of the kinds of public health issues that we’ve talked about in this lesson.
Remind students of the lesson’s essential question (teacher chooses 1 and deletes the other):
Let students know that they will be using the oral histories to complete the formative assessment in which they answer the essential question, so encourage them to take notes or use this graphic organizer to track the information they are gathering so that they can use it to complete the assignment.
Note: Summary of all clips included at beginning of Oral History Clips document.
Listen to stories in one of the following ways:
Explain to students that raising awareness is an important aspect to solving big social issues. They will have an opportunity to raise awareness about a public health problem and/or solution of their choice through outlining an article they might write in a newspaper. They will not write the entire article, just the headline and evidence that they would provide in the body of the article.
Students create a headline based on the information in the oral histories and any external research they do. Headlines should contain both subjects and verbs and are usually no more than 12 words in length.
Below their headlines, students write three pieces of evidence they recorded from the resources they examined that support or explain their headline.
Graphic Organizer
Both the infographic and headline assessments lend themselves well to a gallery walk and peer review once students have finished.
Some research resources:
Remind students of the graphics they looked at towards the beginning of this lesson:
Explain that infographics are an important way to raise awareness about public health issues and that raising awareness is an important strategy for solving big social issues.
Some examples to show them:
Explain to students that they will be designing their own graphic about a public health problem and/or solution of their choice. In the graphic, they should reference three sources in some way, including at least two oral histories. Students could create these online, using websites like Canva or on paper.
Remind students of the lesson’s essential question (teacher chooses 1 and deletes the other):
- How do inequalities in different parts of society lead to inequalities in health?
- How do Black nurses working in public health address upstream and downstream inequalities in health?
Let students know that they will be using the oral histories to complete the formative assessment in which they answer the essential question, so encourage them to take notes or use this graphic organizer to track the information they are gathering so that they can use it to complete the assignment.
Note: Summary of all clips included at beginning of Oral History Clips document.
Listen to stories in one of the following ways:
- Class goes through stories together, with the teacher playing audio/video clips. Following this, the teacher will then give students time to record notes on their graphic organizer. Recommended to play audio/video clips for students twice:
- First time: Encourage students to just listen
- Second time: encourage students to write down questions. After playing, discuss any questions students have to clear up confusion.
- Students go through stories individually, at their own pace, teachers might want to recommend different stories for different students depending on learning styles/needs.
- Students jigsaw stories in groups of 4-5 and summarize for each other.
- Students move through stories in stations, with one story set up at each station and students rotating in groups every 5-10 minutes.
Create a Headline (or Infographic)
This strategy comes from Facing History.Explain to students that raising awareness is an important aspect to solving big social issues. They will have an opportunity to raise awareness about a public health problem and/or solution of their choice through outlining an article they might write in a newspaper. They will not write the entire article, just the headline and evidence that they would provide in the body of the article.
Students create a headline based on the information in the oral histories and any external research they do. Headlines should contain both subjects and verbs and are usually no more than 12 words in length.
Below their headlines, students write three pieces of evidence they recorded from the resources they examined that support or explain their headline.
Graphic Organizer
Both the infographic and headline assessments lend themselves well to a gallery walk and peer review once students have finished.
Some research resources:
- Health.gov provides many specific examples of public health issues/initiatives: https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health
- Illinois Dept of Public Health YouTube Channel
- Chicago Dept of Public Health Podcast series (English & Spanish episodes available)
- Local news without paywalls:
- Chicago: Block Club Chicago, WBEZ, WTTW, Southside Weekly, City Cast Chicago, Chalkbeak (education news), Chicago Reader
Remind students of the graphics they looked at towards the beginning of this lesson:
- Upstream vs Downstream in Public Health (Healthy High Point
- Upstream vs Downstream Factors (Mapping Care team
- Upstream vs Downstream (Benton-Franklin Health Department)
Explain that infographics are an important way to raise awareness about public health issues and that raising awareness is an important strategy for solving big social issues.
Some examples to show them:
- Mass Incarceration (American Institutes for Research)
- School Funding in Chicago (Raise Your Hand)
Explain to students that they will be designing their own graphic about a public health problem and/or solution of their choice. In the graphic, they should reference three sources in some way, including at least two oral histories. Students could create these online, using websites like Canva or on paper.