Introduction

Please click here to see Health Humanities department information.

The Health Humanities minor critically analyzes historical and contemporary connections among health, medicine, and society. The minor deepens understandings of disease and wellness, pain and suffering, personhood, the nature of death and dying, embodied experience, and the limits of technological knowledge. Studying literature, history, philosophy, rhetoric, the arts, and related social science fields, HEHM students explore the human dimensions of medical practice and how they interact with lived experience, revealing the ethical, cultural, and social contexts of health and medicine.

These program requirements are subject to periodic revision by the academic department, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences reserves the right to make exceptions and substitutions as judged necessary in individual cases. Therefore, the College strongly urges students to consult regularly with their major, minor and CLAS advisors to confirm the best plans of study before finalizing them.

Program Delivery

• This is an on-campus program.

Declaring This Minor

• Please see your advisor. Students declaring a minor in HEHM must have at least a 2.5 over GPA.
• Click here to go to information about declaring a major/minor.

General Requirements

 Students must satisfy all requirements as outlined below and by the department offering the minor. 

• Click here for information about Academic Policies

Program Requirements

1. Students must complete a minimum of 15 credit hours taken from the approved courses.
2. Students must complete a minimum of six upper-division (3000-level and above) credit hours in the minor taken from the approved courses.
3. Students must earn a minimum grade of C- (1.7) in all courses that apply to the minor and must achieve a minimum cumulative minor GPA of 2.0. Courses taken using P+/P/F or S/U grading cannot apply to minor requirements.
4. Students must complete a minimum of nine credit hours with CU Denver faculty taken from the approved courses.

Program Restrictions, Allowances and Recommendations

1. Students may only count one relevant transfer course toward their elective requirements for the minor.
2. Students may double count no more than two courses from their major toward the minor elective requirements.
3. Students may take any of the courses from the capstone list as upper division electives. 
4. Upper division level electives may carry prerequisites that must be completed before enrolling.

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Take the following required course:		3
HEHM 3100	Foundations of Health Humanities
Take three of the following upper division electives from at least two different disciplines: 1		9
ANTH 3150	Special Topics in Medical Anthropology
ANTH 3666	Anthropology of Death
ANTH 4010	Medical Anthropology: Global Health
ANTH 4290	Anthropology and Public Health
ANTH 4300	Immigrant Health
ANTH 4600	Medical Anthropology
ANTH 4800	Special Topics in Medical Anthropology
COMM 4500	Health Communication
COMM 4525	Health Communication and Community
COMM 4550	Rhetorics of Medicine & Health
COMM 4558	Digital Health Narratives
COMM 4575	Designing Health Messages
COMM 4620	Health Risk Communication
ENGL 4290	Rhetoric and the Body
ENGL 4745	Humanistic Writing About Medicine and Biology
ENGL 4755	Illness & Disability Narrative
ETST/PBHL 3002	Ethnicity, Health and Social Justice
GEOG 3501	Geography of Health
GEOG 4235	GIS Applications in the Health Sciences
GEOG 4710	Disasters, Climate Change, and Health
HIST 4347	History of Biology
HIST 4348	Mind and Malady: A History of Mental Illness
HIST 4503	Topics in History of Science
HIST 4840	Independent Study: HIST (see Professor Levine-Clark for specific topics)
PBHL 3030	Health Policy
PBHL 3031	Health, Human Biology and Behavior
PBHL 3041	Health, Culture and Society
PBHL 3051	Mental Illness and Society
PBHL 3070	Perspectives in Global Health
PBHL 3071	Global Topics In Sexual and Reproductive Health
PBHL 3091	Live Long and Prosper: Public Health & Aging
PBHL 4020	Global Health: Comparative Public Health Systems
PBHL 4040	Social Determinants of Health
PBHL 4070	Health Disparities
PBHL 4200	The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic
PHIL 3340	Investigating Nature: Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
PHIL 3550	Philosophy of Death and Dying
PHIL 4242	Medicine, Health Care, and Justice: Bioethics
PSCI 4330	U.S. Health Policy
PSYC 3262	Health Psychology
PSYC 3385	Psychology of Mindfulness
PSYC 3611	Psychology of Women
PSYC 4485	Psychology of Cultural Diversity
SOCY/PBHL 3440	Medical Sociology
SOCY/HEHM 3570	Death & Dying: Social & Medical Perspectives
SOCY 4050	Health Disparities
SOCY 4110	Sociology of Health Care
Take one of the following Capstone courses, not already completed: 2		3
COMM 4500	Health Communication
COMM 4525	Health Communication and Community
COMM 4550	Rhetorics of Medicine & Health
COMM 4558	Digital Health Narratives
COMM 4575	Designing Health Messages
ENGL 4290	Rhetoric and the Body
ENGL 4755	Illness & Disability Narrative
HIST/WGST 4345	Gender, Science, and Medicine: 1600 to the Present
HIST 4348	Mind and Malady: A History of Mental Illness
PBHL 4200	The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic
PHIL 4242	Medicine, Health Care, and Justice: Bioethics
Total Hours		15

¹

The Upper Division (3000-level and above) elective list is not exhaustive and continues to be updated. One elective course can be a service learning course or independent study approved by an HEHM advisor. Students may take any of the courses from the capstone list as upper division electives. 

²

These courses incorporate substantial original writing or research projects designed to promote broad reflection about the role of culture, society, and ethics in medicine. Students should choose these courses at the culmination of their minor course work.

To learn more about the Student Learning Outcomes for this program, please visit our website.