YCPHP Summer Internship Program


Program Description:

The program offers students a paid, 10-week field placement in a local agency in Connecticut or Rhode Island to work on projects that help prepare communities to respond to public health emergencies, such as bioterrorism, natural disasters or infectious disease outbreaks. The internship period would begin in early May 2008 and end July 30, 2008.

Last summer, public health students were matched with community agencies around Connecticut and Rhode Island and worked on projects that provided them with “hands on” experience in a wide variety of practice areas. Here’s a sampling:

  • Needs Assessments: Identified vulnerable populations in communities and assessed challenges faced by these groups in public health emergencies
  • Policy Development: Identified best practices in public health emergency response and made recommendations that were incorporated into local and regional response plans in areas such as pandemic influenza
  • Professional Networking: Participated in planning meetings at the local, regional, and state levels with representatives from hospitals, community based health centers and social service agencies
  • Program Development: Initiated development of special population registries, including legal research, database design and creation of data collection forms
  • Communication and Health Behavior: Developed strategies for public education campaigns in areas such as pediatric preparedness
  • Epidemiology and Environmental Health: Assisted state and local health department staff in daily activities, including outbreak investigations and public health code enforcement 

Student Qualifications:

To be eligible, students must be enrolled in a graduate program in public health. Applicants must demonstrate at GPA of 3.0 or above.

Interns will be expected to:

  • Maintain the agreed upon work schedule
  • Provide project deliverables (if applicable)
  • Attend a one-day orientation session at YCPHP
  • Submit a weekly report on their progress to YCPHP
  • Evaluate their internship experience
  • Complete a report on their experience

Successful applicants will possess:

  • Excellent written and oral communications skills, especially the ability to communicate effectively with local officials
  • A strong desire to contribute to public health emergency preparedness
  • Coursework or experience in the following subject areas is strongly desired: emergency preparedness, public health education and training, public health policy and practice, health behavior and risk reduction, health communication, community health planning, field epidemiology, public health nursing

Application Materials and Instructions:

Please download the application form and provide all information requested. You may use extra pages if needed. The deadline for submission is Friday, February 29, 2008.

You may complete the application electronically and submit it by email to kathi.traugh@yale.edu. You may also type or print legibly on a hard copy and submit it by fax or mail to:

Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness
2 Church Street South, Suite 314
New Haven, CT 06519 

Phone: (203) 764-9713        Fax: (203) 764-9716

Information Sessions:

We held information sessions on January 29th, 2008 for Yale and University of Connecticut students. For details, check out our session flyers:

 
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