Social Status: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan is the fourth of four lessons in a teaching pack on the social determinants of health developed by the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University. “Social determinants of health” (SDH) are the social factors external to an individual that may not seem directly relevant to health, but that ultimately shape the conditions in which people live, work, and grow in ways that can both promote well-being and confer disease risk. This lesson introduces students to the importance of relative social status within a society as a determinant of health. Students read a media summary of research on the Tsimane tribe living in village communities in Bolivia where there are no drastic variations in income or socioeconomic status and no formal authority structures. Researchers have measured blood cortisol levels—a measure of stress and health risk for heart disease—among these villagers and found that higher levels of social status within the informal hierarchies were associated with less stress and better health outcomes, suggesting that health may be influenced by socioeconomic status both in an absolute sense (e.g. related to income or education) and also in a relative sense (e.g. related to one’s position in a social hierarchy). The accompanying activity in the lesson invites students to consider relative and absolute social status as they may affect social factors and risks in their own culture and communities in North America. Other companion components in the teaching pack include an instructor’s note, teaching guide, three additional lesson plans, an annotated bibliography, and a glossary of terms. Each lesson may be taught as a standalone unit or together as a four-lesson module.