Open to all NYU Undergraduates
This interdisciplinary minor in Health and Wellbeing Studies examines the biological, psychological, and social factors influencing health. You’ll explore topics like nutrition, psychology, community health, and the arts, and emerge prepared to address health disparities, social justice, and overall wellbeing while enriching your academic and career opportunities.
Degree Details
Official Degree Title
Minor in Health and Wellbeing Studies
Format
Full-time or Part-time
Credits
16
The minor in Health and Wellbeing Studies offers you the opportunity to delve into the complex interplay of biological, psychological, cultural, and social factors that influence health.
By incorporating key courses and concepts from nutrition, psychology, community health, the arts, and other health-related disciplines, the minor broadens your perspectives on wellbeing and equips you with the knowledge to address and understand health disparities and social justice issues in health.
This minor is open to all students across NYU. It is especially appealing for those looking to enhance their primary field of study with actionable insights on health, preparing them for diverse roles in healthcare, policy, education, media, research, and advocacy in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Whether you're aiming to enrich your academic foundation or expand your career possibilities, this minor offers the tools to critically engage with and influence the health landscape.
Students complete 16 credits: 2 core courses and 2 electives. Electives are drawn from across Steinhardt and NYU.
You will complete the Minor’s required foundation course and select one additional foundation course from a short list of options. The foundation courses introduce you to key concepts in the field through an interdisciplinary lens.
In addition to the Foundations courses, you will select two electives – one elective from two of these three areas of study:
- Psychology and Society
- Disability Studies
- Community/Global Health
The electives are offered across Steinhardt and the university. The multidisciplinary offerings cover such topics as cultural perspectives on mental health and illness; disability justice and radical inclusion; race and inequality; health and society in a global context; and global issues in nutrition.
Students do not need to take HLWB-UE 1001 Introduction to Health and Wellbeing first, but they must receive a B- or higher in the class for it to count toward the minor.
Steinhardt offers the required foundation course HLTW-UE 1001 Introduction to Health and Wellbeing every year, along with at least one other core course.
Take the foundation course:
HLWB-UE 1001 Introduction to Health and Wellbeing, 4 credits
This course focuses on building knowledge and skills to improve and maintain individual health founded on the dimensions of well-being. Students examine varying definitions of health, wellbeing, and wellness from a holistic perspective with special attention given to developing and facilitating strategies to improve health-enhancing behaviors. Topics explore risk factors associated with decreased wellbeing, relationship structures, the processes of aging and dying, and the human role in preserving the environment. Students create behavior change material/media on a specific health disparity and dimension of health and wellbeing.
Choose from one of the following courses:
OT-UE 1404 Wellness and Human Connection, 4 credits
Wellness is dynamic and multidimensional. We cannot understand wellness by alone examining biological phenomena and medical knowledge, but instead we must also consider a variety of social, political, economic, racial, gender, and cultural forces in which wellness and illness are produced and understood. Drawing upon literature, art, history, film, and health, in conjunction with a community engagement experiential component, we examine the history of and physical, social, emotional, intellectual, occupational, and spiritual components of wellness and illness from ancient times through the present.
FOOD-UE 1184 Sustainability and Health, 4 credits
The concept of sustainability is important in our current moment, yet we use the term in a variety of ways and via different frameworks of understanding. This course explores how we talk about and understand the concept of sustainability, including as environment and climate change, food production and consumption, and individual and community health. Students will examine the concept of sustainability through these different lenses, exploring the connections among them.
FOOD-UE 1131 Feeding Body and Soul, 4 credits
In this course students think across disciplines to consider what it means to satisfy our literal and metaphorical hunger. Students analyze the relationships between body and soul, self and surrounding, hunger and satiety and visit NYC-based institutions like Essex Street Crossing and the Street Vendor Project to further understand how feeding body and soul works outside of the classroom. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent- satisfies the requirement for Cultures and Contexts.
MPADT-UE 1115 Can Art Save Lives?, 4 credits (NYUNY and Selected Global Sites)
This course provides a dynamic, interdisciplinary overview of ideas and practices uniting the arts in health in clinical, community, and cultural contexts. Drawing on local and global expertise, students examine evidence and examples of artistic expression in sounds, images, words, movement, performance, and film in relation to mental, physical, social, and public health. Students engage in creative practices to gain direct experience with and critically reflect on the arts as a vital resource to support wellbeing. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent- satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures.
Complete one elective from two of the three areas of study below.
Psychology and Society:
- APSY-UE 5 Community Psychology
- APSY-UE 1031 Mental Health: Historical, Social, and Political Perspectives
- CAMS-UA 151 Cultural Perspectives on Mental Health & Illness
- CAMS-UA 153 Mental Health and Society
- CAMS-UA 152 Global Perspectives in Child and Adolescent Mental Health
- APSY-UE 1273 Race and Inequality: Advancing Equity through Policy and Practice
Disability Studies:
- OT-UE 1403 Disability Justice and Radical Inclusion
- MCC-UE 1026: Disability, Technology and Media
- CAM-UY 2204: Disability Studies
- ANTH-UA 209: Disability Worlds: Anthropological Perspectives
- CSCD-UE 101 The Talking Brain: Typical and Disordered Communication
- OT-UE 1011 Cognition & Everyday Life: The Science of Neurorehabilitation
Community/Global Health:
- FOOD-UE 1180 Food and Nutrition in a Global Society
- ANTH-UA 108 Global Biocultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Public Health
- UGPH-GU 10 Health and Society in a Global Context
- HLWB-UE xxxx Comparative Health Systems (under development)
- FOOD-UE 1057 Food, Community and Neuroscience
- NUTR-UE 1187 Intro to Global Issues in Nutrition (also offered in Accra)
Questions?
If you have additional questions about our degree, please contact Professor Ethan Balk.
Declare Minor
Declare the minor online with the University's Application for Cross-School Minor.
Declare Your Minor