The Health, Aging, and the Life Course area focuses on the many ways in which social structures and social processes intertwine to shape human development and health over the life course. Faculty members in this specialization study a diverse set of topics that include childhood health, drug use, sexual behaviors, fertility, parent-adult child relations, family caregiving, health inequalities, and health in later years. Training in this area emphasizes theoretical developments from both micro and macro sociological perspectives, methodological advances that draw on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches, and close collaboration with faculty on their research. Many faculty and students in this area are affiliated with Purdue's Center on Aging and the Life Course which offers an interdisciplinary graduate minor in gerontology as well as a dual title Ph.D. in Sociology and Gerontology.