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Department of Medicine, Health, and Society

Major

MHS majors craft a plan of study that includes core MHS classes, electives that meets their particular interests, and an area of concentration. 36 credit hours of course work, distributed as follows:

1. CORE COURSE: One of the following core courses (3 hours):

  • MHS 1920, Politics of Health
  • MHS 1930, Social Dimensions of Health and Illness
  • MHS 1940, Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
  • MHS 1950, Theories of the Body
  • MHS 2110, American Medicine in the World
  • MHS 2230, Masculinity and Men’s Health
  • MHS 3890 (HUM 1610), COVID and Society
  • ANTH 2342, Biology of Inequality

2. CONCENTRATION: Four courses (12 hours) not used to satisfy the core course or elective requirements in one of the concentrations areas:

  1. Global health: emphasizes social and political determinants of global health disparities, history of global public health concepts and practices, relationship between culture and health, various health systems.
  2. Health policies and economies: emphasizes the economic, legal, and political dimensions of health.
  3. Health behaviors and health sciences: emphasizes biological and social foundations of health.
  4. 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.
  5. Medicine, humanities, and the arts: emphasizes critical inquiry of our most basic ideas about health and medicine.
  6. Critical Health Studies: Students choosing this concentration must propose a set of four courses (12 credit hours) that form a coherent program of study related to critical health studies and receive approval from the director of undergraduate studies.

(Lists of applicable courses are listed in the catalog)

3. ELECTIVES: Seven courses (21 hours) not used to satisfy the core course or concentration requirements chosen from the catalog. All MHS and MHS-approved courses may count as electives (except MHS 3830/3831; 3880/3881; and 4998/4999). Up to 12 hours from the following list may be counted for the major: BSCI 1510-1511; BSCI 2101 (formally MHS 3101); BSCI 2520; BSCI 3101 (formally MHS 3102); BSCI 3234 (formally MHS 1500); CHEM 2221-2222 or 2211-2212; MHS 1600. Your grade in all of these courses will count toward your MHS GPA.

4. DISCIPLINARY REQUIREMENT: One course (3 hours) from the following courses must be used to satisfy the concentration requirement or electives requirement.

  • ANTH 2213W, Food, Identity, and Culture
  • ANTH 3143, Medical Anthropology
  • ANTH 3141, Anthropology of Healing
  • ANTH 3345, Genetics in Society
  • CSET 2500, Science for Everyone
  • CSET 2550, Genetic Breakthroughs: The Promise and the Problems
  • ECON 2350, Health Care Policy
  • ECON 3350, Economics of Health
  • GSS 3305, Gender and Sexuality in Times of Pandemic
  • HIST 2780, Superhuman Civilization
  • HIST 2800, Modern Medicine
  • MHS 1960, Health Humanities
  • MHS 2140, Health Care in the United States: Policy and Politics
  • MHS 3050W, Medicine and Literature
  • MHS 3120, Medicine, Science, and Technology
  • MUSL 3235, Music, Pandemics, and History
  • PHIL 1008, 1008W, Introduction to Medical Ethics
  • PHIL 3608, Ethics and Medicine
  • PSY 3635, Health Psychology
  • RSLT 4834, Post-Freudian Theories and Religion
  • SOC 3301, Society and Medicine
  • SOC 3304, Race, Gender, and Health
  • SOC 3306, Gender and Medical Work

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