This course provides students with an introduction to the study of public health from a sociological perspective. The course focuses most centrally on understanding the national, regional/state, and local level social contexts that are so important for the health of individuals and populations. A substantial portion of the course will be geared toward understanding how social contexts operate to produce health disparities across subgroups of the U.S. population, particularly those defined by race/ethnicity, nativity, and socioeconomic status.