Drawing on courses in the medical sciences, humanities, and social sciences, this innovative interdisciplinary field of study transcends the traditional biomedical approach to understanding health and illness.

Through work in and out of the classroom, MHS students learn to think critically about complex social issues that impact health and develop effective strategies for targeting health care crises. The curriculum is designed to train students to meet emerging challenges in our healthcare system as well as changes in medical education. The Center is dedicated to training the next generation of national and international health leaders—from doctors and nurses to economists and policy makers.

MHS majors craft a plan of study that includes core MHS classes, electives that meets their particular interests, and an area of concentration. Concentration areas include:

• Global health: emphasizes social and political determinants of global health disparities, history of global public health concepts and practices, relationship between culture and health, and various health systems.
• Health economies and policies: emphasizes the economic, legal, and political dimensions of health.
• Health behaviors and health sciences: emphasizes social foundations of health.
• Inequality, intersectionality, and health justice: emphasizes how diverse structures of inequality intersect and shape health disparities, and considers the role of social justice movements in reducing inequities.
• Medicine, humanities, and the arts: emphasizes critical inquiry of our most basic ideas about health and medicine.
• Critical Health Studies: entails a student-designed, faculty-guided course of study.