The Five College Program in Culture, Health, and Science (CHS) is a certificate program that allows undergraduate liberal arts students to explore human health, disease, and healing from interdisciplinary perspectives. Graduate schools recognize that tomorrow's health experts will need interdisciplinary training to link their understandings of history, culture, and behavior with clinical, biological, and epidemiologic models of health and disease. Students design a plan of study that approaches "health" holistically from the perspective of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. 

Completing a CHS certificate builds on the liberal arts approach to equip students with tools to think critically about health issues. For example, students may learn to:

• Recognize historical patterns of disease distribution, treatment, and health disparities
• Appreciate the value of integrating literature, philosophy, and the arts with studies in STEM fields (and vice versa)
• Develop technical skills (such as research design, media literacy, gene editing, foreign languages, econometrics, doula training, or statistical analysis) to apply to health issues
• Navigate healthcare systems and be an advocate for themselves and others 
• Apply contributions of multiple disciplines to the realm of public health, health promotion, cultural competence, disease eradication and global health

Students learn how behavior influences disease distribution, how biomedical categories change across time and culture, and how political and socioeconomic factors affect disease and treatment. CHS students learn to interpret and communicate their results to diverse audiences.

The CHS certificate complements any major, allowing students to deepen their knowledge of human health, disease, and healing through interdisciplinary inquiry. Under the guidance of faculty program advisors on each campus, students choose a sequence of seven courses available across the five campuses and identify (in consultation with their advisor) an appropriate project or internship that will count toward the certificate. (Four semesters of a second language is also recommended, but not required.) Together with the visiting lectures and seminars sponsored by the Program, CHS provides a structure that is adaptable for students interested in pursuing health-related careers, as well as those curious to learn how different disciplines analyze common human experience.

Requirements

Coursework:
The seven required courses are to be distributed across the following five categories of inquiry:

Category 1: Biocultural Approaches

• Interdisciplinary and/or comparative approaches that explore the interdependent influences on human health and disease

Category 2: Mechanisms of Disease Transmission

• Mechanisms of disease growth and transmission within individuals and populations

Category 3: Population Health and Disease

• Exploring the relationships among social, behavioral, economic and other aggregate population forces on human health and disease

Category 4: Ethics, Policy and Practice

• Covering structures of knowledge about health and healthcare decision making, including ethical and philosophical issues and their corresponding policy platforms, as well as the implementation of healthcare in practice

Category 5: Research Design and Analysis

• Concepts of evidence, data collection, research ethics, measurement and modes of analysis

Learn about ever-approved CHS courses that fullfil each requirement category.

Further Details:

• Students must receive a grade of “B” or better in each of their seven chosen courses.  
• No course can be used to satisfy more than one category.  
• At least four of the courses must be above introductory level.  
• No more than three courses can “double count” toward a student’s major.
• If possible, it is best to begin with courses in Categories I and II.
• It is also recommended, but not required, that at least one of your courses expose you to knowledge of health and disease processes at the level of the population (those marked with *P).

Independent Research Project:
The Certificate requires the completion of an independent project such as an internship, thesis, Division III project, course project, independent study or other activity. You work with your campus CHS advisor to develop a project that satisfies both the Certificate requirements and your own interests. Not sure if you have an independent project that qualifies? Meet with your CHS Campus Advisor to find out. 

Foreign Language:
Although not required, training in a foreign language may be necessary for students seeking internships or summer research positions.