范德比尔特医学，健康与社会中心提供的医学，健康与社会专业（MHS）研究影响健康的文化，经济，人口和生物学因素。借助医学，人文和社会科学方面的课程，这种创新的跨学科研究领域超越了传统的生物医学方法来理解健康和疾病。通过在教室内外进行工作，MHS学生将学习批判性地思考影响健康的复杂社会问题，并制定针对医疗保健危机的有效策略。该课程旨在培训学生以应对我们的医疗保健系统中不断出现的挑战以及医学教育的变化。该中心致力于培训下一代国家和国际卫生领导人，从医生和护士到经济学家和政策制定者。
The major in medicine, health, and society (MHS) investigates the cultural, economic, demographic, and biological factors that impact health. Drawing on courses in the medical sciences, humanities, and social sciences, this innovative interdisciplinary field of study transcends the traditional biomedical approach to understanding health and illness.<br><br>Through work in and out of the classroom, MHS students learn to think critically about complex social issues that impact health and to develop effective strategies for targeting health care crises. The curriculum is designed to train students to meet emerging challenges in our health care system as well as changes in medical education. The department is dedicated to training the next generation of national and international health leadersfrom doctors and nurses to economists and policy makers.<br><br>MHS majors craft a plan of study that includes core classes, electives that align with their particular interests, and an area of concentration. Concentration areas include:<br><br>Global health: emphasizes social and political determinants of global health disparities, history of global public health concepts and practices, relationship between culture and health, and various health systems.<br>Health economies and policies: emphasizes the economic, legal, and political dimensions of health. <br>Health behaviors and health sciences: emphasizes social foundations of health. <br>Inequality, intersectionality, and health justice: emphasizes how diverse structures of inequality intersect and shape health disparities and considers the role of social justice movements in reducing inequities.<br>Medicine, humanities, and the arts: emphasizes critical inquiry of our most basic ideas about health and medicine. <br>Critical health studies: entails a student-designed, faculty-guided course of study.