Biobehavioral Health Sciences
How can we use what we learn about the lives of patients to improve our ability to care for them?
In the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences we look at physical, psychosocial, and behavioral health from multiple perspectives, including biological, social, political, and historical.
Our mission
The mission of the BHS Department is to apply our expertise in conceptual and empirical methodologies to enhance patient care through physical, psychosocial, and behavioral health interventions. The BHS Department faculty use multiple perspectives to advance scientific knowledge, including biological, sociocultural, political, ethical, and historical to our research, practice, and interdisciplinary education. As an underlying framework, the Department is committed to social justice in promoting health equity, diminishing disparities, and upholding the ethical principle of respect for persons in all aspects of patient care, teaching, research, and service.
Finding new solutions
We approach healthcare from all angles, bringing cultural awareness and environmental variables into the patient care discussion. Our teaching methods focus on how biological, behavioral, and sociocultural factors influence health care and patient outcomes.
Biobehavioral Health research is in high demand today and covers such topics as health behaviors, genetics and epigenetics, chronic disease, bioethics, global health, physiological processes, environmental exposures, and health disparities.
Developing healthcare leaders
We mentor and support our community of scholars and strive to develop leaders who use their knowledge to enhance patient care, symptom management, and the health of the public.
Department programs
Nurse PractitionerAdministrationDoctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
Nutrition
Minors/Post-Master’s
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Department News
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Hodgson Appointed Chair of NIH Committee
Nancy A. Hodgson, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Anthony Buividas Term Chair in Gerontology and Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing has been appointed Chair of the Clinical Management of Patients in Community-based Settings (CMPC) Study Section in the Center for Scientific Review of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).