Why do certain populations have longer life expectancies? Is it behavior, genes, structural inequalities? And why should the government care? This course unpacks taken-for-granted concepts like race, evidence-based medicine, and even the public health focus on equalizing life expectancies. From questions of racism in the clinic to citizenship and the Affordable Care Act, 'Race and Medicine' takes students on a journey of rethinking what constitutes social justice in health care.

This course covers major diseases (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, infectious diseases), the physical changes that inflict morbidity and mortality, the design constraints for treatment, and emerging technologies that take into account these physical hurdles. Taking the perspective of the design constraints on the system (that is, the mass transport and biophysical limitations of the human body), we will survey recent innovations from the fields of drug delivery, gene therapy, tissue engineering, and nanotechnology.

In this studio course open to all, we will dive into experiences in which body and language meet. We'll think about these from aesthetic, cultural, political, medical, personal, and philosophical perspectives. We'll explore language from, in, around, and about (our) bodies. We'll question hierarchies between body and language, use embodied approaches to examine pressing issues of our time. We'll play with the physicality of voice and the material qualities of words and sentences. We'll find literary structures in movement. We'll move and create together with tools from dance, theater, visual art, improvisation, writing, and somatic practices.

Health economics is a growing field of applied microeconomics and is an important aspect of public policy. This course explores the health care sector and health policy issues from an economic perspective. Microeconomics tools will be used to analyze the functioning of different pieces of the health care system. Topics will range from fundamental subjects, such as the demand for health, to more recent developments, such as mental health, child health and risky health behaviors. This course teaches an economic approach to studying the various policies that affect health and health behaviors.

An introduction to the biology of viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, worms, arthropods, and parasitic plants. The major emphasis will be on the parasites of animals and plants, with further study of the epidemiology of infectious diseases in human populations. Studies of AIDS, anthrax, and worms, and their role in human history will be complemented by ecological and evolutionary studies of fig wasps, measles, myxomatosis, and communities of parasitic helminths. The course combines lectures with daily field laboratories to explore the dynamics and abundance of parasite in a variety of host species in the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya.

This required course for Global Health Program students explores how we study the distribution and determinants of disease, introducing methods for measuring health status, disease occurrence, the association between risk factors and health outcomes, probing evidence for causality, and characterizing how ecology and evolution shapes human health. Emphasis on: study design and sampling, bias and confounding, the generalizability of research, identifying causality, infectious disease dynamics, global health.

Human reproduction is often taken for granted as a merely biological phenomenon, yet reproduction is laden with cultural meaning and import for individuals and for society as a whole. Despite its significance, reproduction is rarely addressed in the Princeton curriculum. This lecture course explores human reproduction from a sociological perspective. It also seeks to introduce students to some of the basic modes of thinking in both sociology and gender and sexuality studies.

The current environment in the US for the use and abuse of foods and drugs will be examined from a scientific fact-based perspective. Historical, economic, marketing, political, and public health drivers will be considered. Specific topics include government dietary recommendations (food politics), dietary supplements (from Vitamins to herbal extracts), pharmacology and ethical drug development (sulfa drugs, NSAIDS, etc), addiction and substance abuse (alcohol, nicotine, stimulants, opioids, etc), Alzheimer's disease and the problem of long-term care in an aging population, and Psychedelic drug use and abuse (psilocybin, mescaline, LSD, etc).

We will explore the molecular events leading to the onset and progression of human cancer. We will review the central genetic and biochemical elements that make up the cell cycle, followed by a survey of the signal transduction pathways and checkpoints that regulate it. We will discuss oncogenes, tumor suppressor and mutator genes that act in these pathways and review the role of viral oncogenes and their action on cells. We will investigate the role of cancer stem cells and the interaction between tumor and the host environment. We will explore specific clinical case studies in light of the molecular events underlying different cancers.

This course will consider the principles, development, outcomes and future directions of therapeutic applications of biotechnology, with particular emphasis on the interplay between basic research and clinical experience. Topics to be discussed include production of hormones and other protein drugs, nucleic acid drugs and vaccines, gene therapy and gene editing, and molecular diagnostics. Reading will largely be from the primary literature.

The objectives of this course are to understand the bio-psycho-social/processes that influence health-related behaviors, health and wellness, and health-care delivery. Topics to be examined include the psycho-physiological, neuro-psychological and socio-cultural bases of health and illness; pain; adaptation to chronic illness; stress; personality and illness; death, dying, and grief; substance use; obesity and nutrition.

We suffer. Sometimes more, sometimes less - but we all suffer, and often profoundly. What is it about the human condition that seems to make suffering inevitable? What can we do to deal with it? One approach is to try to change the external conditions causing the trouble. A very different approach sees the most important change as being within ourselves. Can we eliminate - or at least assuage - our suffering by changing the way we direct our attention (Netflix...), by changing the way we experience (drugs...), or by changing our manner of desiring (spiritual practices...)? We will approach these questions practically and theoretically.

The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, was the defining (and polarizing) initiative of the Obama era, with provisions to expand health insurance coverage, control health care costs, and improve the health care delivery system. This course will focus on the history of health reform, as well as implementation challenges since the law's enactment. We will examine the federal regulatory process, the many legal challenges to the law, the role that states have played in implementation, and Congressional repeal efforts. We will also investigate the role of federalism in health care policy and the future of health care reform.