Social Forces Fall 2018

From the Interim Chair:

Welcome to the Fall 2018 issue of Social Forces, the newsletter of the Department of Sociomedical Sciences (SMS)!

This is a very special year for SMS because we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of our founding. It was in 1968—a turbulent historical moment filled with controversy and conflict, not unlike our present moment in some ways—that SMS was established as the first department in a school of public health devoted to applying social science perspectives to health. For the past fifty years, SMS has been a leader in understanding and addressing the social determinants of health. We bring together social and behavioral science disciplines to educate the next generation of public health leaders and to conduct action-oriented research that advances the theory and practice of public health.

This issue of Social Forces provides many examples of how our faculty, staff, and students are working to promote equity and reduce disparities in health. You’ll read about the ways SMS master’s and doctoral alumni are making a difference in a wide range of public health careers; get a taste of the diverse summer practicum experiences of some of our MPH students; and learn about some of the exciting research findings our faculty have recently published. I could not be prouder of the work our department is doing every day, especially as we celebrate our 50th anniversary.

Special thanks to Katie Nakano, Andrea Constancio, Yasmin Davis, and Anne Foulke Toner for their work on this issue of Social Forces.

James Colgrove