Introduction
The Engaging the World: Health Equity Bibliography was curated in partnership with Chapman University's Engaging the World series, an annual program leading the conversation on global critical issues (e.g., environmental justice, the significance of race). The texts featured in this exhibit are just a portion of a more extensive bibliography (numbering over 100 resources) comprised of nonfiction, memoir, poetry, and fiction, all seeking to expand the conversation on health equity.
The bibliography can be viewed in three ways: the physical display (pictured left) on the first floor of Leatherby Libraries through the fall semester, the digital display* (where you are currently), or the entire bibliography. You may find the listed texts speak to your experiences or will discover the extensive spread of health inequity across the globe. Some of the books discuss how racism has ingrained itself in the bodies of African Americans–adversely affecting their physical health, a poet who feels her struggle with Lupus has made her invisible, how the mental health care system continues to fail patients with inadequate medicine, or the coverup orchestrated by the U.S. government, who sought to erase their failure in handling a bubonic plague outbreak that killed over 100 people, including Chinese immigrants.
Both Engaging the World and the bibliography seek to promote thoughtful dialogue and mindful reflection beyond the walls of Chapman University. The fight for health equity is ongoing and begins with a conversation.
Featured authors include Linda Villarosa, Suzanne Edison, and Angela Narciso Torres, who will be visiting Chapman this fall. For more information, click here.
What is Engaging the World?
Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences is committed to leading the conversation in the community on issues of humanity, unity and justice. As such, the college has undertaken semester-long examinations of key societal issues. These interdisciplinary, campus-wide conversations promote thoughtful dialogue; mindful reflection; social tolerance; awareness and respect; peace and kindness. Wilkinson is partnering with Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences for the 23-24 series focusing on health equity.
What is health equity?
- Health Humanities integrates concepts from the arts, humanities, and social sciences to examine notions of health, well-being, illness, and disability in relation to diverse histories, cultures, perspectives, and communities within and beyond the United States.
- Health Equity identifies and challenges the historical, cultural, social, and economic disparities that interfere with access to health and health care.
- The global COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing repercussions have further reinforced the need for Health Humanities to understand the complexity of health not only as medical but also as individual and communal, physical and emotional, historical and political, and cultural and statistical.
- Health Equity exists when everyone can attain the highest level of health.
- This year’s series aims to promote informed, sustained, and enriching dialogues through an in-depth exploration of what the human condition of health means in our lives.