For Health Equity and Justice

We will design, implement and sustain cost-effective, equitable public health programs that address structural and social determinants of health, the root cause of most chronic and infectious diseases.

A mother and her baby in Uganda. An academic track that bolsters the health of mothers and children launched at the beginning of the 2021–22 academic year.

Poor health in the United States and globally is due to systems and processes that perpetuate health injustice. YSPH examines how historical and current systems of privilege and power related to race, class, sex, age, sexual orientation, place and other identities create unequal, unjust and avoidable burdens on health. YSPH develops and implements innovative interventions, policies and programs that dismantle these structural factors to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities, whether locally, nationally or globally. YSPH seeks to achieve this by:

Developing a world-class public health practice, research, training, education and outreach program based on equitable community engagement and implementation science.
Promoting research in health equity and social justice.
Fostering training through the expansion of our new U.S. Health Justice Concentration, which provides students with practical experience in organizing, advocacy and policy skills that prepare them to advance justice.
Creating community research collaborations by establishing long-lasting and robust partnerships with community-based organizations.

Improving health care quality and access requires a health justice approach that examines equity through the lenses of economics and history. Special challenges include ensuring healthy aging in a growing elderly population and nurturing wellness in vulnerable populations: low-income children, women, the LGBTQ+ community, incarcerated people, ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, refugees and food- or housing-insecure people. Our Office of Public Health Practice, and our new academic concentrations in social justice and maternal and child health, will be a vehicle for this work, engaging students through internships, preceptorships and thesis work.

Collaborate With Us

Gift opportunities to advance scholarship in health equity and justice range from $5,000 to $1.5 million for faculty research innovation funds to support pilot projects, doctoral fellowships, Health Equity Fellowships, internships, and more:

U.S. Health Justice Concentration

Advancing health justice and equity are central to YSPH’s mission. This interdepartmental YSPH concentration prepares students to analyze and address systems and processes that perpetuate health injustice in the United States.

Health Equity Fellowships

As part of a commitment to improve health equity and support community programs in Greater New Haven County, YSPH offers a Health Equity Fellowship program for students, which provides an opportunity to gain valuable public health work experience through projects that are co-created with various community organizations that work with and in historically underrepresented communities.

LGBTQ Health, Stigma and Health Disparities

Help advance the goal of translating YSPH research into psychosocial interventions that improve health within the LGBTQ community while mitigating the adverse impact of stigma on health through support of the current use program resource fund, internships and more.

Mobile Mental Health Interventions

Mobile devices can place mental healthcare support and intervention in the pockets of those struggling with depression, addiction, or other mental health issues.

Service to Connecticut: Community Impact through Evidence-based Practice and Innovation

YSPH nurtures and trains tomorrow’s public health leaders by providing public health practice opportunities that integrate innovation, systems thinking and social justice. Opportunities exist for establishing endowed internships that focus on community engagement in New Haven and beyond in partnership with state/local health departments.