Overview

The most pressing contemporary challenges confronting human health are rooted in a rich, multidisciplinary knowledge base that extends from a 19th century understanding of the consequences of poor nutrition and inadequate sanitation to a rapidly evolving 21st century mastery of the structure of the genome. Within this broad context, the foundations of good health remain grounded in a complex interplay of social and economic influences, and the increasingly effective treatment of serious illness is linked to dramatic advances in molecular biology. Stated simply, the promotion of sound health is tied to how people live, and the treatment of complex disease is tied to sophisticated biomedical research and individual access to state-of-the-art medical care.

The major in Health: Science, Society and Policy capitalizes on Brandeis University’s enormous strengths across the many disciplines that contribute to our current understanding of human health and disease. This program will help students understand the biological underpinnings of health, illness, and disability, as well as their social, political, legal, and economic dimensions. International cases and examples are integrated into the study of these issues in the United States. Faculty who teach in this program come from the biological and social sciences and The Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Program Objectives

This program, which draws on a considerable range and depth of expertise in the College of Arts and Sciences and The Heller School, is designed to address the following four broad objectives:

• to expand students' understanding of the biological, behavioral, social, and environmental factors that promote health or cause illness
  
  
• to introduce students to the political, economic, legal, public health and organizational dimensions of health care systems in the United States and throughout the world
  
  
• to provide students with "hands on" experience in either an internship (in a health care delivery, public health, or advocacy organization), a laboratory (studying the biological basis of health, behavior, or disease), or a field-based research project (investigating aspects of health or illness in a social context)
  
  
• to provide students with the opportunity to integrate their academic coursework and supervised fieldwork or laboratory experiences across a number of health-related disciplines through a team-taught, capstone seminar.