Health & Well-Being
Health & Well-Being
We believe that health and well-being are fundamental human rights, and that access to quality, affordable health care—including mental health support—is an absolute necessity for a flourishing community.
Significant health challenges afflict our society today and under-resourced communities often experience the most detrimental consequences.
U-M strives to be a model of excellence for meeting these challenges by taking a holistic approach to both prevention and treatment, working to mitigate inequities, and continuing in our purposeful efforts to optimize patient care, cure devastating diseases, and improve the quality of life for our communities.
With a goal to better serve society, Michigan Robotics, housed in the Ford Robotics building, is leading the future of robotics through collaborative research in artificial intelligence, autonomous and connected vehicles, deep learning, human-robot interaction, rehabilitation robotics, safe autonomy, and more.
The Open-Source Leg is a first-of-its-kind artificially intelligent platform that aims to advance prosthetics, improve patient outcomes, and accelerate research. Elliott Rouse, lead designer and associate professor of robotics and mechanical engineering, hopes the bionic leg will serve as a unified platform to help researchers discover innovative solutions intended to improve patients’ lives.
Significant health challenges afflict our society today, from infectious disease threats to the health effects of climate change to gun violence, and more. Communities are impacted differently by these issues, with under-resourced populations often experiencing the most detrimental consequences.
U-M strives to be a model of excellence for meeting today's health challenges by taking a holistic approach to both prevention and treatment. We must work to mitigate the inequities and the negative outcomes caused by social determinants of health. And we continue in our purposeful efforts to save lives and improve the quality of life for our communities through research and innovation, advancing science to cure devastating diseases, as well as optimizing patient care and advancing medical education.
We must aim to find the upstream causes of poor health and work to prevent illness and disease before they manifest. At the same time, we can make a tremendous positive impact on treatment outcomes for all by driving new discoveries, harnessing data and artificial intelligence, rethinking models for traditional health care delivery, opening up access to care, and taking on the high cost of health care.
Together We Can
- Transform public health both locally and globally with leading developments in preventive health strategies and by cultivating collaborations to overcome critical health challenges.
- Close the health equity gap by directing research, clinical breakthroughs, and policy changes toward the needs of the under-resourced.
- Set the national benchmark for health care delivery by excelling in equity, safety, quality, and patient outcomes through groundbreaking research and clinical excellence.
- Generate innovative discoveries that enhance health outcomes and propel scientific progress by fostering a world-leading research ecosystem that encourages scholarly excellence and translates findings into real-world applications.
The School of Public Health is leading an interdisciplinary initiative called Public Health IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Discovery, Engagement, and Actions for Society) to invest in solutions for today's pressing health issues. IDEAS works with partners on campus and beyond to create healthy cities, prevent firearm injuries, combat infectious diseases, and build health equity.
Wolverine Street Medicine is a medical student group addressing health disparities for people experiencing housing instability. It provides free medical services through mobile outreach and at barrier-free shelter clinics in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Ypsilanti. The group also organizes foot care clinics, hosts educational events, and manages an elective course for clinical medical students.
The Well-being Collective is a collaborative effort focused on making U-M a better place to live, work, and learn. This entails implementing a systemwide approach to supporting well-being across our campus, including recognizing the critical role of access to the arts, as well as investing in mental health resources.
A meditation nook is planned for the Campus Farm at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Designed through a partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, the glass alcove will serve as a safe space for people to find calm.
The U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation fosters partnerships with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and policymakers at all levels—local, state, and national—to inform decisions and influence health policy around our shared priorities, such as infant mortality, health equity, healthy aging, and firearm-injury prevention.
At the University of Michigan, making quality health care accessible to all is key to disease prevention. The innovative Mobile Mammography unit at the Ypsilanti Health Center is expanding health care in under-resourced communities, ensuring that patients receive early diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.
e-HAIL, a joint Michigan Medicine and College of Engineering initiative, aims to make U-M a premier hub for research that innovates in health through artificial intelligence. The focus is on collaboration, grant development, and infrastructure to support a multidisciplinary approach to innovations in health care and AI and machine learning methodologies.
PrivacyLens, a camera developed by U-M engineers, could make chronic health monitoring safer by forbidding companies from gathering personal photos and videos of patients from smart devices. Using a heat-sensing camera, the device can replace a person in an image with a stick figure to conceal their identity and help reduce patient anxiety.
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