The HSSP Bachelor's Degree: Preparation for Your Future
Through the Health: Science, Society, and Policy (HSSP) program, you will explore wellness, disease, and treatment through a multidisciplinary lens.
Whether you earn a bachelor of arts (BA), a bachelor of science (BS), or a minor, you will be exposed not only to the biological underpinnings of human health but also to the complex interplay of behavioral, socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors that affect it. You will learn about health care systems and public health policy development and implementation. And you will gain real-world experience through a required internship or independent research project. If you’re planning to go into the health professions, HSSP can serve as a pre-med option.
By undertaking this broad, interdisciplinary study of health, you’ll prepare yourself for a variety of professional opportunities. Our graduates pursue careers in such varied fields as medicine, dentistry, nursing, social work, genetic counseling, biomedical research, public health and public policy, health administration, health advocacy, and law.
Why HSSP at Brandeis?
There are few programs like HSSP in the country. Launched in 2003, ours draws on three major strengths at Brandeis: life sciences, social sciences, and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. The diversity of faculty interests — from the sociology of disability to epigenetics to health law — reflects this interdisciplinary approach.
A core requirement for major and minors is the course Introduction to Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Population Health, content rarely offered to undergraduates. Our hands-on experience requirement equips you with invaluable exposure to a real-world context. You’ll find Brandeis’ signature emphasis on social justice is reflected in our program as you explore the social determinants of health and health disparities as well as bioethical questions.
Academics and Research
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HSSP is one of the most popular majors at Brandeis. Each year we graduate approximately 100 students. As an HSSP major or minor, you'll enjoy an intellectually and experientially diverse range of learning opportunities focused on health, health care and health policy.
A great strength of the HSSP program is that it is interdisciplinary, which means that you can draw on the expertise of world-class faculty throughout Brandeis as well as choose from well over 100 health-related courses at Brandeis and over 100 health-related courses while Studying Abroad, as well as an array of hands-on-experience which enables students to gain firsthand experience in a health care setting or with a health organization.
As an HSSP major or minor, you'll enjoy an intellectually and experientially diverse range of learning opportunities. Our courses are clustered into three broad focal areas:
- Focal Area A: Biological Dimensions of Health and Illness
- Focal Area B: Social & Behavioral Dimensions of Health and Illness
- Focal Area C: Health Care Policy and Practice
BA candidates and minors may choose from over a dozen electives to hone their research and data analysis skills.
Some students pair their HSSP major or minor with course work in Anthropology, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, and an array of others.
Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the program, our faculty has a diverse range of interests. HSSP science faculty members engage in research ranging from neuroscience to genetics to infectious disease. Sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists conduct research on aging, medicalization, managing illness and impacts of stress on disease. Heller School policy faculty members are deeply involved in current health reform, development of new drug policies, and evaluating quality of medical care.
Students take advantage of peer teaching assistant opportunities. Teaching assistants work closely with the professor to get an inside view of how courses are created and conducted.
If you are motivated to delve deep into a topic and analyze a body of material from the field in a creative and original way, you may consider writing an independent research project or senior honors thesis. Such work can be a highly rewarding experience that requires commitment and perseverance.
Faculty Excellence
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Our faculty hail from the life sciences, social sciences and policy realms, and their research reflects this diversity:
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Our HSSP Chair, health policy expert Darren Zinner is frequently published in prestigious journals, such as JAMA, NEJM and Academic Medicine, and is the inventor on two medical device patents.
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Sarah Elisabeth Curi, JD, MPH, our Undergraduate Advising Head (UAH) and Study Abroad Liaison (SAL), has taught at Brandeis since 2007 and is still a practicing health care attorney where she has advised several hospitals, health care providers, and health tech companies and, recently, was in-house counsel to a Google subsidiary. Her areas of expertise include American health law and policy, public health, and biomedical ethics. Her students have recognized her for excellence in teaching and mentoring. She is also a Visiting Lecturer in Political Science - teaching Constitutional Law and Public Health in America - at Wellesley College, her alma mater.
- Deborah Garnick's research career has been focused on healthcare quality -- working with teams at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management and collaborators across the nation to develop and test performance measures focused on treatment for substance use disorders.
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Biologist James Morris is a lead author of the college textbook “Biology: How Life Works” and the high school textbook “Biology for the AP Course.” He also regularly contributes to "The American Biology Teacher.”
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Sociologist Sara Shostak is an award winning teacher and author and the inaugural director of the Vic ’63 and Bobbi Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT). Her books include Exposed Science: Genes, the Environment, and the Politics of Population Health and Back to the Roots: Memory, Inequality, and Urban Agriculture.
- Sociologist Siri Suh's book, Dying to Count: Post-Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal, received the 2022 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize for scholarship in gender and health from the American Anthropological Association. Her current project explores authorized and off-label use of misoprostol, a uterotonic medication, in West Africa. Conducted in collaboration with social scientists from national universities in Burkina Faso and Senegal, this ethnographic project has received nearly a million dollars in funding from the Hewlett Foundation's Gender Equity and Governance Program.
- Cindy Parks Thomas PhD, Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Heller Graduate School studies medical technology - its development, costs, contributions to medical care, and its access. This includes the development of drugs and devices, and impact of new treatments for substance use disorder and other conditions. Her work has been featured in Health Affairs, JAMA, NEJM, and other high-impact journals, as well as the popular press.
Internships and Study Abroad
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As an HSSP major, you will be required to complete a hands-on experience (HOE) related to medicine or a life science, a social science or public health, or policy.
To do this, you have many options to choose from, including certain approved internship seminars offered by Brandeis, independent research, a senior thesis, or a health-related study abroad experience.
We encourage HSSP majors and minors to engage in study abroad. Each year, approximately one-third of HSSP students participate in such programs. In recent years, HSSP students have gone to Mexico, Chile, Denmark, England, Geneva, South Africa, Spain, and numerous other countries for their life-enriching study abroad experiences.
While some HSSP students do not take health-related courses abroad, others go abroad to expand their perspectives on health and health care, as well as cultural differences in understanding health, illness, and well-being. Many programs offer health-related internship and field experience components that fulfill HSSP’s HOE requirement.
HSSP has pre-approved over 180 Study Abroad courses, including over 30 HOEs.
Graduate Study, Careers, and Alumni
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Students who are considering pursuing a future master's degree at Brandeis may discover their chosen path through one of these two five-year HSSP/Heller degree programs:
Both programs enable HSSP BA and BS students to complete a duel undergraduate and master's degree within five years.
Some HSSP alumni go on to pursue a master’s or doctoral degree in a health-related field while others, often inspired by their HSSP HOE internship, pursue careers in a wide variety of fields including medicine, public health and public policy, education and advocacy.
Recent alumni have gone on to become public health analysts, clinical research coordinators, and teachers.
