More then 100 people work to promote health and well being.
More than 100 Yale School of Public Health students, faculty, staff and alumni fanned out around New Haven—and at sites as distant as Waterbury, Hartford and the Thimble Islands—to improve communities and promote health and well being.
Projects for the Yale Days of Service (May 8 and 9) were as varied as the participants and included:
- Painting hallways and apartments at the Hillside Family Shelter in New Haven. The center provides shelter for homeless families.
- Developing a new garden at New Haven Farms. Volunteers moved soil and prepared the site for planting. The farm promotes healthy eating to fight obesity and chronic diseases.
- Sorting non-perishable foods and fresh produce at the Connecticut Food Bank warehouse in East Haven. The organization distributes food to local soup kitchens, pantries and shelters.
- Creating innovative approaches to communicating health risks to the public at the Connecticut State Department of Health in Hartford. Volunteers worked on health messages for at-risk populations in the areas of environmental risks (e.g., lead, drinking water contaminants and food safety); chronic conditions (e.g., asthma); and infectious diseases (e.g., Ebola, flu, tick-borne diseases).
“The enthusiastic response of the Yale School of Public Health was amazing,” said Dean Paul Cleary, who visited many of the sites Friday and pitched in to help. “Public health is all about improving lives and it was fantastic to see so many staff, students and faculty coming together and working for the greater good.”
The event was part of the School of Public Health’s centennial celebration this year. Formed in 1915, the school if one of the oldest institutions of its type in the United States and has a growing array of research, training and educational initiatives that span the globe.
At Leeway in New Haven, a skilled-nursing center that provides intensive medical, nursing and behavioral health services to people living with HIV/AIDS, some 20 YSPH volunteers spoke at length with residents to learn their stories and document the part Leeway has played in their lives, while others readied the Leeway garden for spring.
At the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History’s Horse Island (part of the Thimble Islands off the coast of Branford), volunteers from YSPH and elsewhere built trails, cleared invasive species and picked up trash. “A great time was had by all,” said Associate Professor Linda Niccolai.
The health needs in New Haven and other communities are serious, said Cleary.
A recent survey by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness identified more than 650 people in New Haven alone who were homeless. Many had found refuge in a shelter, while a smaller proportion was found to be living outside.
A separate survey in New Haven by CARE, the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement, a research group at the Yale School of Public Health, found wide health and economic disparities.
CARE’s door-to-door health survey of nearly 1,300 people in some of the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods found that:
- Seventy percent of people in the neighborhoods are either overweight or obese, a rate higher than the state and national averages.
- People surveyed have higher rates of asthma, diabetes, heart disease and stroke than their peers in Connecticut and the United States.
- Thirty percent of the residents smoke, a rate higher than the state and national averages.
In conjunction with the Days of Service, the School of Public Health has a photography exhibit currently on display that documents the lives of three New Haven women who are experiencing food insecurity. The Witnesses to Hunger exhibit will remain in the foyer of the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health at 60 College St. through May 26.
The goal of 100 YSPH volunteers for the Days of Service was easily exceeded, said Elaine Anderson and Priscilla Canny, organizers of the event along with Dawn Carroll.
“For all of us, it demonstrated how central service continues to be to the mission of the school. Clearly, C.-E.A. Winslow's commitment to community lives on,” they said, referring to the school’s founder and long-time leader.