History of Health Sciences MA

The History of Health Sciences HHS program, founded in 1930, is the second-oldest such program in the United States. HHS is concerned with the historical development of medical practices, disease categories, biomedical technologies, and healthcare systems. With an emphasis on modern (late nineteenth to twenty-first century) American and European contexts, the program's faculty and students investigate how medicine, health, and illness are historically perceived, and how these perceptions reflect and shape culture and society. Examining the role of the patient, provider, institution, and state in healthcare systems, the program provides students the ability to understand how medical ideas and practices have been deployed and negotiated in different historical contexts.