The minor in Social Science and Medicine provides an interdisciplinary, social science approach to human health, medicine, and healing. It is designed for both social science majors and non-majors who are interested in fields relating to human health, such as pre-med, nursing, pre-physical therapy, pre-occupational therapy, public health, and other health and medicine-related careers. The ways in which medicine and health care providers can treat the biological functions of illness and disease are constrained and circumscribed by numerous cultural and social factors such as patients’ geographic and economic access to health care, the motivations for seeking health care for some conditions but not others, how to care for their bodies and what they perceive to be indicators of good or poor health. These factors also vary dramatically across cultures, genders, religions, socioeconomic factors, and ages. Courses included in this minor provide students with the knowledge base to recognize the interactions between formal health institutions and social relations that can support or limit health and healing. A minor in Social Science and Medicine trains students to acknowledge and work across the complexity of issues and multitude of factors that influence people’s choices and health related behaviors, ultimately making them more compassionate, analytical, and insightful health care professionals.
