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Health Systems Studies Minor

College of Nursing and Health Sciences / Nursing
Undergraduate minor

About The Program

The Health Systems Studies minor offers an interdisciplinary overview of the structure, delivery, and evolving nature of healthcare systems. In response to ongoing changes in policy, technology, payment models, and population demographics, this program equips students with the foundational knowledge needed to examine how healthcare systems operate and how factors such as leadership, communication, and health equity shape outcomes.

Open to students across a wide range of majors, including public health, nursing, sociology, communication, business, psychology, and the biological sciences, the minor is especially well-suited for those interested in healthcare-related careers outside of direct clinical practice.

The minor can be completed in 19 credits, and many of its courses fulfill General Education (GELS), Upper Division, and RIGR requirements, allowing students to efficiently integrate the program into their bachelor’s degree plans.

Through interdisciplinary coursework, students develop an understanding of healthcare systems and prepare for roles in areas such as healthcare administration, community health programs, public health initiatives, healthcare project management, and health insurance and related sectors. The program reflects the university’s commitment to interdisciplinary education, community engagement, and preparation for careers in the health workforce.

Student learning outcomes

Students completing the minor will be able to:

  • Communicate effectively with diverse individuals and communities in healthcare contexts

  • Collaborate across disciplines to address healthcare challenges

  • Evaluate and apply evidence to improve health outcomes

  • Analyze healthcare systems using systems thinking

  • Demonstrate leadership and organizational management skills

  • Develop stakeholder-informed health promotion strategies

  • Apply ethical decision-making in healthcare settings

How to enroll

Current students: Declare this program

Once you’re admitted as an undergraduate student and have met any further admission requirements your chosen program may have, you may declare a major or declare an optional minor.

Future students: Apply now

Apply to Metro State: Start the journey toward your Health Systems Studies Minor now. Learn about the steps to enroll or, if you have questions about what Metro State can offer you, request information, visit campus or chat with an admissions counselor.

Get started on your Health Systems Studies Minor

Program eligibility requirements

Open to students in all undergraduate majors.

Courses and Requirements

SKIP TO COURSE REQUIREMENTS

A Minor in Health Systems Studies requires 19 credits, including required core courses and one elective.

A Minor in Health Systems Studies requires 19 credits, including required core courses and one elective.

+ Required Course Courses (15 credits)

This course is designed to provide an understanding of the health care industry and the theory and practice of face to face and mediated forms of communication by health care administrators, managers, providers, and patients. Students will analyze both common and best practices in health care campaigns, training, public relations, patient satisfaction, patient advocacy, administration, media covering health issues, and public education. Significant focus is given to issues of race and racism, and how social constructions of race and racism affect perspectives and create disparities in health care access, communication, and outcomes experienced by different populations.

Full course description for Health Communication

This course focuses on understanding the complex organization and operation of the health care system in the U.S. The history, stakeholders and their interactions, financial considerations, and the role of government are discussed and incorporated into critical analyses of the operation and performance of the health care system, current health care issues, and possible future directions for health care in the U.S.

Full course description for Understanding the U.S. Health System

This course examines global health issues that influence population health outcomes, including the interaction between domestic and global health. Students study frameworks such as vital statistics, Millennium Development Goals, and human rights principles and apply these frameworks to the definition, prevention, or mitigation of identified global health issues or concerns with particular attention given to the health of infants, children, and women in low and middle income countries. The course concludes with a study of cooperative efforts designed to mitigate or prevent global health problems.

Full course description for Global Health Issues

This course focuses on the role of racism in the creation and perpetuation of poor health outcomes. Emphasis will be placed on analysis, utilizing critical theory, of the manner in which the history of scientific racism is embedded in current health care clinical practice. The biological responses to the experience of racism will be explored. Racism in healthcare research, the role of structural racism in homelessness and its effects on health, and engagement in anti-racist, activist scholarship to achieve health equity are addressed.

Full course description for Racism and Health

+ Elective Requirement (4 credits) Students will complete at least one elective course from the following options:

What is gender? How can we understand differences in gender and sexuality? Through the perspective of cultural anthropology and sociology, students examine how gender is perceived and realized in a range of human societies. Discussions on the biological/cultural determinants of gender are considered. Case studies explore how gender varies cross-culturally and historically and is related to social power. Students engage with contemporary debates surrounding such themes as marriage, family, human rights, inequalities, and sexuality.

Full course description for Gender in Sociocultural Perspective

This course introduces the principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics that are useful for our understanding of the market economy, the banking and the financial system, government regulations, economic policies and the global economy. This course is designed for students who do not intend to pursue a business or economics degree and it does not satisfy the requirement at the College of Management or the major requirement for Bachelor of Science in Economics at Metro State University.

Full course description for Introduction to Economics for Non-Business and Non-Economics Majors

This course takes a systematic and historic look at immigration as an American national mythos and examines how immigration intersects with race and racial difference, and has affected the development of Black, Asian, Latino and Indigenous cultures and communities within the United States. Topics include immigration histories and experiences, critical conceptions of race, ethnicity, and migration, assimilation and acculturation processes, and social, cultural, and policy responses to migration. Significant focus is given to issues of race and racism

Full course description for Immigrant Communities and the Trajectories of Othering

This class focuses on the history and background of the social and environmental issues confronting racial and ethnic communities in the United States. Students learn about the practice and politics of ecological inequality, community initiatives which have developed to combat such inequality, and how environmental justice has emerged as a viable and powerful political movement. This course is useful to students interested in environment and public policy as well as racial and ethnic studies.

Full course description for Environmental Justice and Public Policy

This course focuses on the knowledge and skills needed to appropriately identify, collect, analyze and report evaluative information to be used in making decisions about, and changes in, programs. Topics include approaches to program evaluation, the process of planning and conducting an evaluation, basic principles and practices of designing evaluation instruments, and methods for interpreting and presenting data with an emphasis on providing relevant information to decision makers. This course is appropriate for anyone in business, public, nonprofit or human services administration who is responsible for making decisions about service programs or for conducting evaluations.

Full course description for Program Evaluation

How do works of visual, musical, and performative art help us understand issues of health and wellness, medical intervention, human suffering, and healing? This interdisciplinary course examines how artists and authors in the U.S. critically represent health, ethics, and wellness at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and ability. Students will engage with literature, visual arts, film, music, and/or performance as sites where health and medical practice are normalized, interrogated, critiqued, restructured, and investigated. By studying how BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and women artists provide critical perspectives on health and medicine, students will gain a broad grounding from which to articulate their own views on health ethics and the role of art in healing individuals and communities.

Full course description for Health Humanities

What counts as scientific knowledge, and how do we decide? Who participates in scientific knowledge production, technological development, and health-related caregiving and innovation, and to whom do we give credit? How have science and medicine been a source of social power and authority? Is technology political? How have our historical, social, and cultural contexts shaped what we research, what we build, and how we provide care? This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of science, technology, and health studies (STHS). STHS integrates knowledge and ways of knowing from across many academic and non-academic disciplines into a more comprehensive understanding of the contexts in which science, technology, and medicine have been created, the ethics of these practices, and their impacts on the wider world. In this class, students will learn key concepts and themes from science, technology, and health studies. We will investigate how historical, social, and…

Full course description for Diverse Perspectives in Science, Technology, and Health Studies

Is it ever right to try to hasten a patient's death? Should people ever be given medical treatment against their will? How should we decide who will get access to scarce medical resources (like organ transplants)? Do people have a right to get the care they need, even if they can't pay for it? This course will use ethical theories and theories of justice to explore these questions and others like them. It is intended to be helpful not only to (present or future) health care practitioners, but also to anyone who wants to think about these issues, which confront us in our roles as patients and as citizens whose voices can contribute to the shaping of health care policies.

Full course description for Medical Ethics

This course will provide an introduction to the field of health psychology, which is concerned with the roles of behavioral/lifestyle, psychological, and social/cultural factors on health/wellness, illness and chronic disease. The course will address four general subject areas: 1) attitudes, behavior, and lifestyle factors affecting disease prevention and development; 2) stress and the related psychological and social processes associated with disease development and progression; 3) social and psychological factors involved in the illness experience; and 4) long-term social and psychological implications of chronic illness (e.g., heart disease, cancer).

Full course description for Health Psychology