Community Health & Human Development
The mission of the Division of Community Health and Human Development (CHHD) is to foster interdisciplinary teaching and research on developmental epigenesis: that is, how biologically based differences in individual susceptibility and resistance work together with social, physical and cultural environments to influence the emergence of disease and the preservation of health over the human life course.
The division comprises four programs of study—the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, the Health and Social Behavior Program, the Maternal and Child Health Program, and the Public Health Nutrition Program—that offer diverse perspectives on the preservation of health and the origins of disease. The division's broad, multidisciplinary faculty represents, among others, the fields of medicine, epidemiology, sociology, health education, anthropology, health psychology, human reproduction, nutrition, economics, journalism, and moral philosophy.
With a collective emphasis on the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, the Division's shared interests center upon five scholarly and teaching themes:
- Biological factors, social environmental factors, and biology-environment interactions in human adaptation and the genesis of disease;
- The role of time (e.g., historical, developmental) in the life course epidemiology of mental and physical disorders;
- Sociocultural disparities in population health;
- Place and health: i.e., the role of the built environment in disease prevention and health promotion;
- The translation of interdisciplinary research into medical and public health practice.
- Health and Social Behavior
- UCB-UCSF Joint Medical Program
- Maternal and Child Health
- Public Health Nutrition
Specialty Area
To learn more about Community Health & Human Development program, contact Greta Gebhardt at hpm_mph@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-4578.
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