The Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of Michigan emphasizes the importance of linking a multi-level array of causal factors if we are to understand and improve population health and eliminate the great health divides within our society. By bringing together faculty in Social Epidemiology, Sociology, Health Behavior and Health Education, Medicine, History, Public Policy, Social Work, Health Management and Policy, Neurosciences, Neuroendocrinology, Biostatistics, Biology, Economics, Genetics, Urban Planning, Political Science, Demography, Education, Statistics, and Ecology, we have created an environment in which independent scholars can gain depth, breadth and a wide set of research opportunities in which to understand the broad determinants of individual and population health.

Leading this program are three co-directors, all members of the Institute of Medicine: George A. Kaplan, Ph.D., professor and chair of Epidemiology, senior research scientist at the Institute for Social Research, and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health; James S. House, Ph.D., professor of Sociology and senior research scientist in the Social Environment and Health Program at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research; and Ana V. Diez Roux, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and co-director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. The directors and the steering committee of 15 other faculty have published extensively on the core topics of the Health & Society Scholars Program. An additional 60 faculty members are committed to providing research opportunities and mentoring.

The program is designed to provide a fertile environment in which scholars and their mentors can fashion a highly individualized program of study and research. Scholars will have the opportunity to pursue an active research program and participate in a series of intensive seminars, including Population Health and its Determinants, Research Methods in Population Health, Leadership and Career Development in Population Health, and other areas. Multiple mentors, representing the scholar’s home discipline, area of research involvement, and the interdisciplinary perspective of the program, will work with the scholar to provide a productive two-year experience.

Scholars determine their own research agenda, with the University’s unique resources providing extensive opportunities for scholars to gain experience in primary and secondary data analysis. Program faculty are leaders of many exciting projects, including the Health and Retirement Study, the Americans’ Changing Lives Study, The Alameda County Study, the National Survey of African-American Mental Health, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Study, the Pitt County Study of Hypertension in African-Americans, the Chicago Community Study of Adult Health, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, many ongoing community-based health studies in Detroit conducted through the Urban Research Center, the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, The Women’s Employment Study, and many others. The University also has special centers that allow analyses of confidential data from the census and other sources.

We are committed as researchers and teachers to meeting the national need for increased training of future leaders and scholars who understand the links between society and health. We have exceptional faculty with considerable expertise in this area, a large and varied set of institutional and community resources, and an internationally recognized record of commitment to interdisciplinary training.

For more information, contact:

The Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program
Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health
1214 South University, 2nd Floor
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
Phone: (734) 615-9208
E-mail: healthandsocietyscholars@umich.edu
Web site: http://www.sph.umich.edu/rwjhssp/
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