Alumna Continues to Give to Yale and to New Haven

When Deborah Rose ’72, ’77 MPH, ’89 Ph.D. came to Yale as an undergraduate in the late 1960s, she spent her first summer working in the Hill, Dixwell, and Fair Haven neighborhoods. This experience became the basis of a lifelong commitment to health equity and community improvement. She went on to earn her MPH and Ph.D. from the Yale School of Public Health.

Today, Rose is still engaged with both Yale and the city that was her home for so many years. When she heard about a major new program at the School—the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE)—that seeks to improve the health of New Haven residents, she met with Dean Paul Cleary and Professor Jeannette Ickovics, the program’s director, to learn more. CARE’s goals impressed her so much that Rose decided to create an endowed fund to provide support, in perpetuity, for the organization that Ickovics leads.

“I was intrigued by the idea of making a difference in the health status of New Haven,” said Rose, who works for the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland. She has made several previous donations to Yale and the City that have enabled the development of other innovative programs.

There will be an integrated research and evaluation component to the program, and Rose is pleased that there also will be initiatives to improve the health and fitness of inner city residents of all ages. “Yale has always been engaged with the surrounding community,” Rose said. “Under the combined leadership of Yale President Richard Levin and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, we are starting to see the visible effects on infrastructure, housing, and retail space. It is now time to post similar gains in health. I look forward to seeing what CARE creates.”