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School of Public Health's Diversity Day Brings the Field of Public Health to Life for Local Students

Approximately fifty students from area high schools and universities got a glimpse into the world of public health on Saturday, February 7 as School of Public Health students, faculty, alumni and administrators gathered for the third annual Diversity Day program. This event, hosted by the Office of Admissions, was created three years ago in an effort to introduce prospective students of color to the field of public health and to the M.P.H. program at Yale.

Attendees included local high school students participating in the Yale branch of the Health Professions Recruitment and Exposure Program (HPREP). HPREP is a nationwide science mentorship program aimed at recruiting African American, Native American and Latino high school students into careers in the sciences and the health professions. At Yale, HPREP is run by a group of second year medical students who coordinate a series of ten Saturday sessions, one of which incorporates the School of Public Health's Diversity Day Program.

The Program began with a welcome from Jacqui Comshaw, Director of Admissions. She told the guests that "at the Yale School of Public Health, we strive to maintain a student body diverse in ethnicity, experience, education and culture" and that the day's program was designed to give them “a better understanding of the multitude of opportunities in public health.”

Curtis Patton, Ph.D., Global Health Division Head and Professor of Epidemiology in the Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, inspired the young audience by talking about important people of color who have touched the Yale and New Haven communities in positive ways. He followed with a brief lecture on malaria which gave the attendees a glimpse of what it might be like to attend a class at the School of Public Health. Gina Engler (M.P.H., '03) Research Study Assistant at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discussed the smoking cessation study that she is conducting and how it impacts people's lives. A panel of five current School of Public Health students then discussed why they chose to go into public health, what it is like to be a student at the School, and what they plan to do in the future. Representatives from Kaplan Educational Services brought the program to conclusion with some standardized test-taking strategies and a raffle. The grand prize was a free test prep course at Kaplan.

-Story by Christy Gordon based on interview with Jacqui Comshaw, February 10, 2004.