Upstreaming Health

Reimagine systems to make everyday life healthier by design. Good health doesn't begin the minute someone walks into a doctor's office. If we want everyday life to become healthier by default, we need to shift our interventions from downstream to upstream, from healthcare to the places where we live, learn, work, and play. Upstreaming health means making a deliberate effort to create patterns of everyday life that keep people well - physically, emotionally, financially, and socially. In Upstreaming Health, we will explore systems that influence health, health equity, and sustainability, integrating concepts from public health, systems thinking, and design justice and use tools from product and policy design to answer the question: How might we upstream health for all people? Through community-engaged projects, students will prototype possibilities for upstreaming health at a population-level.