The Department of Social Medicine is committed to teaching, research, and service that addresses the social dimensions of health, illness, and doctoring. Our department, housed within the UNC School of Medicine, is unique in its disciplinary diversity. Social Medicine faculty encompass an extraordinary range of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and clinical medicine.
Message From The Chair
Upcoming Events
Spark Series on Faculty Research with Seth Berkowitz
Monday 12:00 pm
Merrimon Lectureship Spring 2025
Thursday 12:00 pm
Recent News
4 weeks ago
Henderson Co-authors Article in Nature Medicine on Clinical Validation of AI Health Tools
Through an analysis of 500+ FDA-authorized AI medical devices, Sammy Chouffani El Fassi, a MD candidate at the UNC School of Medicine and researcher at Duke Heart Center, and Gail E. Henderson, PhD, professor of social medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill, discovered a lack of published clinical validation data for many authorized devices and established a …
3 months ago
Buchbinder Co-authors JAMA Viewpoint on Supporting OBGYNs
Building on their recent research, Mara Buchbinder, PhD, professor and vice chair of Social Medicine, and Kavita Arora, MD, director of the UNC Division of General Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Midwifery, published a viewpoint article in JAMA about how institutions can support OBGYNs in states with the most restrictive abortion laws. Supporting OB-GYNs in Abortion-Restrictive …
3 months ago
Fisher Co-authors New Report on Universities’ Support for Academic Couples
Jill Fisher, Professor of Social Medicine and Core Faculty in the Center for Bioethics, has co-authored a new study ranking research universities’ support for academic couples, including for partner hires. Fisher’s work with Torin Monahan on dual-career academic couples was featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. Do Institutions Support …
4 months ago
Oberlander Edits Special Issue on Polarization, Partisanship and Health
Jonathan Oberlander, Chair and Professor of Social Medicine and Professor of Health Policy & Management, is editor of a new special issue in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law on Polarization, Partisanship, and Health in the United States. In the lead essay, Oberlander argues that partisan divisions between Democrats and Republicans are reshaping U.S. health …