Susan Hunter, PhD, Independent Scholar, 158 Thole Street, Norfolk, VA 23505, 757.683.6180, shunter@odu.edu

Historically, race has been an important organizing concept and segregation an important organizing structure that mediated resources, power, and privilege. Yet, the permeating influence of segregation is often ignored in the dominant histories of health care and health disparities. The omission is, one could say, an attempt to cover up or ignore history. These ahistorical stories render problems of social inequality and oppression invisible. The ways in which an idea, such as social inequality and oppression, is understood, changed, and replicated across fields is important to understand. For this reason it is important to remember the particulars of history in each field and to identify how these histories have been omitted from the dominant discourse. It is also important to link these histories to a collective history. Collective cross-field and interdisciplinary histories expose the intersections of resources, power and privilege. This presentation presents such a history. Architectural renderings of a segregated hospital as well as furniture and space allocations will be used to illuminate a particular history of how the built environment maintained “otherness” and marginality. This presentation will identify what a segregated hospital care looked like and identify how this and other related information is omitted from education textbooks. The intent is to illuminate the historical thinking that perpetuated segregated health care systems and built social/urban environments, and to consider its relation to the contemporary debates regarding environmental justice issues, such as problems of social inequality and oppression.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this presentation, participants will be able to
• Articulate how the built environment of segregation named and located social inequality.
• Understand how health care histories tend to ignore information about segregation (built and social/professional).
• Understand how this type of ahistorical and partial knowledge that ignores discussions of social inequality, power, and privilege.
• Identify how corrective histories across fields can build bridges that will illuminate common ground related to social inequality and oppression.

Keywords: Health Disparities, Urban Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.