Berkeley Center for Social Medicine

Background image: A collage of books and publications by affiliates of Berkeley Center for Social Medicine

The Berkeley Center for Social Medicine critically engages the intersection of social systems, social difference, health and health care in the United States and across the globe.

Founded in 2013, the Center links to the discipline of social medicine internationally by bringing together Bay Area scholars from the social and historical sciences who are working on questions related to medicine, the health sciences, public health, global health, the social structuring of suffering, violence and the body.

Berkeley Center for Social Medicine News

The Impossible Choices Migrants Face Without Work Authorization

November 2, 2023

This essay by Stacy Torres, Berkeley Center for Social Medicine faculty affiliate, advocates for work authorization for hundreds of thousands of migrants who've recently arrived in the U.S., with New York City as the receiving epicenter....Read more about The Impossible Choices Migrants Face Without Work Authorization

First Time Home

October 30, 2023

The film First Time Home, co-produced by Seth Holmes, Berkeley Center for Social Medicine co-chair, shares the journey of four second generation American teenagers who want to return to their families’ ancestral homes in southern Mexico....Read more about First Time Home

Structural Competency and Global Public Health

October 4, 2023

A number of Berkeley Center for Social Medicine faculty, student affiliates, and former visiting scholars have contributed to this special issue of Global Public Health, "Structural Competency in Global Perspective.” Editors and authors of the collection include:...Read more about Structural Competency and Global Public Health

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues