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Humanities, Arts and Public Health Practice at Yale

The HAPPY Initiative
Formed in early 2019, the Humanities, Arts and Public Health Practice at Yale (HAPPY) is an interdisciplinary initiative focused on health and the humanities, leveraging the rich resources across Yale’s campus. Based at Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) and in collaboration with the Schwarzman Center and Yale’s top ranked schools of Medicine, Nursing, Music, Drama, Architecture and Management, HAPPY brings together the rich perspectives and contributions of humanities, arts and public health practice to improve health outcomes in diverse communities. HAPPY inspires cutting-edge research and recruits and retains talented students, faculty and artists to inspire innovative approaches to community health and the arts.

Focus Areas

  1. Collaborate and engage - Establish a national center for arts, humanities and public health practice
  2. Organize and measure - Train students to use interdisciplinary arts to promote community health through a new arts and humanities MPH course track
  3. Research and inspire - Conduct research and evaluation to measure health outcomes of arts-based programming

Current Projects

The Pandemic Archive – a multidisciplinary documentation of life during the covid-19 pandemic

"Science is Just Another Opinion: The Battle Between Facts and Anecdotes"

Neal Baer, MD

Dean's Lecture

The Happy Initiative

October 29, 2020

May 04, 2020

‘One’ Episode 3: Public Health scholars blend arts and tech to boost energy

In episode #3 of the Schwarzman Center web series, One, Taiga Christie interviews Tanya Yajnik and Yuwen Qiu about their recent collaboration, Agora Good Life, an energy-focused wellness app that is set to launch this summer. Yajnik and Qiu explain how their intersecting interests in arts and public health research inspired the app’s development. Yajnik, a skilled musician, concludes the segment with an aria from her spring recital that was postponed due to physical distancing.

Source: Yale News
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Seminars and Events

Feb 20214Thursday
Feb 202123Tuesday
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Yale Schwarzman Center

HAPPY works in close partnership with the Schwarzman Center and other campus organizations.