The Health & Society Scholars Program at Columbia University is a joint initiative of the Mailman School of Public Health and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP). The Mailman School is a pre-eminent school of public health at the heart of Columbia's health sciences campus, adjacent to the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and Nursing.
The Health & Society Scholars Program draws from the departments of Epidemiology, Sociomedical Sciences, Population and Family Health, Environmental Health Sciences, and Health Policy and Management. Located on the university's Morningside campus, ISERP is the research arm of the social sciences at Columbia. Through workshops, centers and research projects, this interdisciplinary institute joins faculty from sociology, political science, economics and history with their counterparts from professional schools such as Architecture, Law, Business and Social Work. The Health & Society Scholars Program represents an exciting intellectual fusion between a leading center of social epidemiology and a locus of innovative social science research.
Participation in research is the core of the two-year fellowship experience. Each scholar will be matched with one or more research mentors who will guide individual projects or involve the scholar in larger-scale labs and studies. The Columbia community offers a wide range of research opportunities, including a number based in New York City. Particular areas of strength include social and psychiatric epidemiology, environmental health, network modeling and disease transmission, historical and dynamic analysis, and the study of socioeconomic factors, health behavior, and biologic and genetic factors in health.
To build intellectual community and promote professional training, the program offers a bimonthly faculty-fellows seminar featuring cutting-edge research in the field of population health. During their first semester, scholars also will take part in a pro-seminar on population health, with a reading list tailored to their areas of strength and interest. The program also sponsors short courses in research methods, such as multi-level modeling and network analysis, and a leadership course that introduces scholars to journalists, policymakers and opinion leaders active in the field of health.
Columbia's program has two co-directors. Bruce Link is professor of Epidemiology and director of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Training program. Peter Bearman is professor of Sociology and director of ISERP. The steering committee includes Geraldine Downey (Psychology), Barron Lerner (Sociomedical Sciences), Peter Messeri (Sociomedical Sciences), Ruth Ottman (Epidemiology), Elliott Sclar (Urban Planning) and Seymour Spilerman (Sociology). Another 24 affiliated faculty will join them in the program. These participating faculty will connect scholars to the rich resources of the Columbia campuses, including: the Institute for Child and Family Policy, a network of leading scholars in social welfare policy; the Columbia Earth Institute, an unparalleled center for environmental science; and a number of other research centers.
For more information, contact:
The Health & Society Scholars Program
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street, MC 3355
New York, NY 10027
Phone: (212) 854-3694
E-mail: chssp@columbia.edu
Web site: http://www.chssp.columbia.edu/
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