Culture, Health and Illness, Minor

Director: Heather R. Hlavka, Ph.D.

The Culture, Health and Illness minor is designed to provide students the opportunity to examine health and illness from an integrated, multi-disciplinary perspective. Students pursuing this minor learn to identify and analyze how people from diverse backgrounds and contexts perceive and experience health, illness, and healthcare practices. Topics such as health disparities, medical ethics, narratives of illness, and the role of language in health care communication provide students with nuanced understandings of health experiences, patient-provider interactions, and the varied impacts of public health policies. A minor in Culture, Health and Illness prepares students not only for advanced degrees in medical and nursing professions, but also for future careers and degrees in public health, health advocacy, health policy, health ethics, health care administration and gerontology.