Public health and people in poverty

The current design of public health approaches and the outcomes suggest that policy makers and program designers do not fully understand the causes of poverty or the impact that it has on individuals and the community. The course will use the lens of economic class to develop accurate mental models of poverty, middle class and wealth. With new constructs, a new lexicon, new community structures, and new tools public health practitioners will be challenged to redesign their approaches. The content will include: the argument for use of economic class as an analytic category; the development of an accurate mental model for poverty as it is experienced now; a review of the research on the causes of poverty; information on how to engage people in poverty in problem solving; information on language registers that explains why public health messages are not reaching the audience and will explore how to communicate more effectively; information on the hidden rules of class that can be used to develop relationships of mutual respect; how to design effective programs; implication for public health policy. This course will be based on the book Bridges Out of Poverty and the workbook Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin'- by World. Bridges to change the mindset of middle class providers, Getting Ahead to engage people in poverty as community problem-solvers. Several communities in the U.S. and Canada have adopted Bridges approaches to building high-impact, comprehensive strategies for helping people out of poverty and building healthy and prosperous communities.