YSPH Around the World - Fall 2023

New Haven, Connecticut

The Yale Digital Media for Health Outcomes course guides students through the design of digital social and behavior change communications. Developed in partnership with the Ad Council, African Union, Africa CDC, Population Services International, and UNICEF, the course includes instruction from several experts in the health communications field, case studies from WHO and Yale School of Public Health, and examples of communication campaigns.

Pakistan and Nepal

Assistant Professor Ashley Hagaman received a YIGH SPARK Award for her work decolonizing suicide interventions in Nepal and Pakistan. A local artist made stickers that correspond to the core elements of a crisis/safety plan to help prevent suicides. The stickers give people with limited literacy a way to make an easily used plan.

Ukraine

The RESPECT project (REsponding to the needs of PEople deprived of liberty in ConflicT), delivers mental health interventions in Ukrainian prisons and is led by Associate Research Scientist Danielle Poole and Professor Rick Altice.

Mariupol, Ukraine

Associate Research Scientist Danielle Poole and colleagues published the first geographically comprehensive before-and-after study of the effects of an ongoing conflict on specially protected medical infrastructure. During Russia’s siege, 77% of medical facilities in Mariupol sustained damage, a violation of the Geneva Conventions, the researchers contend. The innovative work, which builds off of the satellite imagery damage classification by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, is leading the advancement of war crime documentation.

Uganda, Africa

Assistant Professor Laura Forastiere received a YIGH Spark Award for her project on malaria morbidity and mortality in Uganda. The Spark Award will be used to conduct a feasibility pilot to understand barriers to malaria testing and to assess an approach to enhance testing and treatment among people attending private health services.

Rwanda, Africa

Associate Professor Sarah Lowe received a YIGH Spark Award for her work on behalf of Rwanda’s orphaned children. A national program seeks to close large-scale residential facilities and reunite children with their families. Researchers will conduct a study to assess mental health, and implement interventions.

Liberia, Africa

Through Yale University’s USAID-funded award, BRIDGE-U: Applying Research for a Healthy Liberia, the University of Liberia College of Health Sciences has launched the first health entrepreneurs' learning program, HEALR: Health Entrepreneurship Advancement Leveraging Research, designed to support aspiring health entrepreneurs in developing their skills while accelerating the progress of their health ventures. Assistant Professor Kristina Talbert-Slagle said the goal is to empower participants to identify unmet health care needs in Liberia and propose viable solutions. The program is part of a collaboration with the Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation and Technology in Massachusetts.

South Africa

Mind the Gap: Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders among PLHIV on TB Preventive Therapy in South Africa, is led by Associate Professor Luke Davis and is focused on understanding how mental health and substance use disorders affect TB preventative therapies among adults living with HIV (PLHIV).