The Yale and Slavery Research Project

• All incoming MPH students are required to take a core course called “Social Justice and Health Equity” (EPH 507). This course outlines the social and structural determinants related to health inequities in the United States and globally. Conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and empirical approaches to understanding social justice and health equity are explored, focusing on health determinants, including health care, social class, poverty, oppression and power, stigma and discrimination, and neighborhood and social factors. The course takes a multidisciplinary approach, integrating methods and research from epidemiology, social sciences, and medicine to explore the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal influences that lead to healthy and unhealthy outcomes. There is a particular focus on anti-Black racism and the legacy of slavery.
• We have developed several concentrations for students to pursue that focus on advancing social justice and health equity for marginalized and minoritized populations. The concentrations include U.S. Health Justice, Climate Change and Health, and Global Health. Each concentration requires students to engage in an applied practice experience, allowing students to apply skills and knowledge gained in the classroom in a real-world setting.

Our faculty, staff, and students are engaged in innovative, collaborative, cutting-edge research, addressing the world’s most pressing public health challenges. Here, we highlight examples of work focused on reducing health inequities rooted in structural racism, discrimination, and the legacy of slavery.

• The Substances and Sexual Health (SASH) Lab : The SASH Lab at Yale is focused on conducting and disseminating strengths-based youth substance use and HIV prevention research. The lab’s mission involves creating programs and solutions that are tailored for youth and families in urban communities, highlighting the role of race and gender in health outcomes, and mentoring the next generation of strengths-based researchers from underrepresented backgrounds. The SASH Lab research priorities include: (1) reducing substance use/misuse among racial-ethnic minority youth; (2) preventing sexually transmitted infections and HIV incidence among racial-ethnic minority youth; and (3) developing prevention initiatives and programs that are shaped by the voices of racial-ethnic minority youth.
• The Lived Experiences Igniting Transformations in Health (LEITH) Lab : The lab aims to put people and lived experiences first within scientific discoveries, biomedical approaches, and healing initiatives to achieve racial health equity in rare and neurodegenerative diseases like ALS. The LEITH Lab identifies and critiques structural and systemic concerns that widen health disparities and seeks to create solutions to improve representation, access, care, and research in the rare neurodegenerative and genetic disease space. Part of the lab's mission is to advance anti-racist research equipped to understand, measure, and intervene on the impact of race, racism, and related intersections in shaping rare neurodegenerative diseases and genetic disease disparities. The Black Genome Project is an example of this work. The mission of the Black Genome Project is to understand how genetic research impacts Black communities and how Black communities value their genomes and genetic data. Using research methods that include members of the community on the research team and through the study of individual people and community culture, the project aims to create a space for Black people to understand genetic diversity and to evaluate, learn, and take ownership over the future of precision public health and genomic medicine that have historically been impacted by structural racism.
  
• Housing and Health Equity Lab : The lab is focused on understanding the population health implications of the current affordable housing crisis, and more broadly examining the mechanisms and processes through which housing access contributes to health and well-being. The lab’s research also considers the health implications of an ongoing history of racially discriminatory housing and urban policies that have constrained housing access for non-white Americans. As such, they consider housing as a mechanism through which racial disparities in population health are produced and reinforced. Ultimately, the lab’s research seeks to inform policy interventions to improve housing access and to reduce health inequalities.
  
• Consumer Health Informatics Lab (CHIL) : The mission of CHIL at Yale is to improve the health of individuals by supporting innovative research through consultation on inclusive design and usability testing of consumer health products for diverse populations. In particular, the lab is working to narrow the digital health divide for people of color, leveraging technology to provide mental health services and resources to underserved Black and Brown communities.
  
• YSPH researchers are leading studies that have important implications for how structural racism, racial discrimination, and discriminatory policies affect a whole range of additional health outcomes, including sepsis care, LGBTQ health, environmental health, and HIV and substance use.
  
• YSPH bestows an annual faculty award and MPH thesis prize recognizing outstanding research advancing health equity.

At YSPH, we commit to working with and being accountable to the communities we serve by building authentic and sustainable partnerships.

• YSPH launches a Health Equity Fellowship program : In collaboration with Southern Connecticut State University, the YSPH Office of Public Health Practice created this summer program to provide students an opportunity to gain valuable public health work experience conducting health equity projects that are co-created with various community organizations working with and in historically underrepresented communities in the Greater New Haven area. In addition to working on their projects, students participate in sessions focused on learning more about health equity, the harmful impacts of inequitable practices, community-based participatory approaches, and how to work with communities in a culturally responsive way.
• YSPH creates a Community Impact Lab : The CI Lab is centered around building equitable partnerships with local non-profit organizations so that students can access experiential learning opportunities that will allow them real-world public health practice experiences. The YSPH Office of Public Health Practice established the CI Lab as part of its mission to educate and train an inclusive public health workforce that is equipped to address today’s complex public health challenges and oppression in all its forms in partnership with the community.
  
• YSPH establishes an Activist-in-Residence program : The vision for this program is for researchers and public health practitioners to listen to activists’ lived experiences and collaborate with them. By connecting academics to activists on public health-related issues, such as criminal justice reform, environmental injustice, and gun violence, the program emphasizes community-based partnerships and solutions in pursuit of creating policies that change real lives.