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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

Videos

Yale Schwarzman Center

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