Max Heirich’s career focused on the study of social movements and on public policy issues. Beginning in the mid- 1970s he increasingly focused on issues of health care, health policy, and social movements trying to change the American health care delivery system. Max’s special love has been the comparative study of health and disease in different cultures, and he began teaching Western and Nonwestern Medicine in 1975. He also taught in the Sociology Department and in the Medical School, In 1993 Max cofounded the interdisciplinary UM Health Policy Forum.
In the Worker Health Program of the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, which he later directed, Max used research grants from NIH, unions and management, and the US Public Health Service to introduce and evaluate strategies for disease prevention and health promotion. He served as consultant to NIH’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine Advisory Board and to the President’s White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy.
Recent Courses
Western and Nonwestern Medicine
Designing and Evluating Ininovations in Health Care Delivery
Contermporary Social Theory
Opening the Heart: Understandings of Justice and Compassion in the major religions
Books Published
The Beginning, Berkeley 1964
The Spiral of Conflict
Evaluating Health Care Policy: understanding our Options
Rethinking Health Care: Innovation and Change in America
