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About the School of Public Health |
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About the School of Public HealthFounded in 1915, Yale’s School of Public Health is one of the oldest of the nationally accredited schools of public health. It began when, in 1914, the University received an endowment from the Anna M.R. Lauder family to establish a chair in public health at the Yale Medical School. This chair was filled a year later by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, who was and is still considered to be the “founder of public health” at Yale. In its early years, the department was a catalyst for public health reform in Connecticut and the health surveys prepared by Winslow and his faculty and students led to considerable improvements in public health organization. He also successfully campaigned to improve health laws in Connecticut and for the passage of a bill that created the State Department of Public Health. In the 1960’s it was decided to merge the Department of Public Health with the Section of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, a unit with the Department of Internal Medicine. The Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) was the result of this merger. Today, faculty and students at the Yale School of Public Health continue to strive toward Winslow’s goal of “…preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting physical and mental health and well-being through organized community effort…and [developing] the social machinery to assure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance or improvement of health.” The Yale School of Public Health is one of the oldest nationally accredited schools of public health in the country having achieved this inaugural status along with seven other schools in 1946, though its origins date back three decades prior as a department in the Yale School of Medicine; a status it still maintains. In 1914, Yale University received an endowment from the Anna M.R. Lauder family to establish a chair in public health in the Medical School. This chair was filled in 1915 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, who was to be a central figure in the development of public health at Yale. In its early years Winslow’s Department of Public Health at Yale was a catalyst for public health reform in Connecticut, and the health surveys prepared by him and his faculty and students led to considerable improvements in public health organization. He also successfully campaigned to improve health laws in Connecticut and for the passage of a bill that created the State Department of Public Health.
Drawing on principles and expertise in existing departments at the School of Medicine to supplement public health courses, Winslow focused on educating undergraduate medical students in the context of preventive medicine. He established a one–year program leading to a Certificate in Public Health and a comprehensive non–medical program that graduated eighteen students with a Certificate in Public Health, ten with a Ph.D., and four with a Dr.P.H. by 1925. His students specialized in administration, bacteriology, or statistics. Due to three decades of Winslow’s leadership and innovative foresight and commitment to interdisciplinary education, the department’s academic programs earned recognition as a nationally accredited School of Public Health in 1946. In the 1960’s the Yale Department of Public Health merged with the Section of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, a unit within the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical School, resulting in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH). In 1964, EPH moved into its own building, the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health (lEPH), which was designed by Philip Johnson and continues as the primary location for teaching and research. The Yale School of Public Health community benefits greatly from its dual roles of providing a world–class education as an accredited, fully functioning school, and by conducting cutting–edge, interdisciplinary research through its collaborative departmental partnerships at the School of Medicine and across the Yale campus. Through rigorous academic and scientific pursuits, our students and faculty continue to honor Winslow’s commitment to improving the health of the community through the practice of public health. The School of Public Health, Coat of Arms
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Our thanks to Travis Hedrick, Ph.D., M.P.H. '77, and past president of AYAPH, for presenting us with this shield and its historic background.
The coat of arms incorporated in our current publications was adopted by the Department in May 1996.
The upper portion of the school’s arms is the same as that for the Yale University School of Medicine. These are from the arms of Elihu Yale, the East India merchant and benefactor after whom Yale College is named. The upper arms consist of an ermine field, white with small black stylized tails and the red cross of Saint Patrick, called a saltire. The lower portion of the arms is the C.E.A. Winslow family coat of arms. It consists of a red diagonal bar running from the shield’s upper left to lower right and containing seven gold lozenges. Although the original Winslow arms was in a field of white, the EPH rendering is on a background of Yale blue.
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Thanks to efforts of university-wide faculty and staff as well as talented designers, a mace symbolic of our school has been created. A raised equator of metal bearing the words "Health Promotion" and "Disease Prevention" separated by our EPH heraldic shield encircles a hollow, copper globe representing our fragile world. This signifies the support and protection EPH offers the public both locally and worldwide, which is representative of our mission statement. There is a raised design of Hygeia at the head of the mahogany shaft. Hygeia is the Greek goddess of health and the daughter of Aesculpius, the god of medicine and healing. Our shield also appears on the shaft of the mace and is hand-painted with our school colors.
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