SOC 6035

Social Structure & Epidemics

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

Epidemics and pandemics throughout history have revealed strong associations between core aspects of social structure – including factors at both the individual level (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and SES) and population level (e.g., community features like density, poverty, walkability, occupational composition, and government). This course will discuss and explore the role these factors play in shaping the spread of infectious disease throughout populations, especially with respect to rapid, widespread, and deadly events like epidemics and pandemics. Students will learn about research on these topics through frameworks such as network epidemiology, diffusion, social stratification, sociology of disasters, and political sociology. Students will plan and engage in fieldwork in and around Ithaca in an effort to identify key risk factors that may affect our preparedness for and vulnerability to future epidemics.

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