At Yale School of Public Health, our vision is linking science and society, making public health foundational to communities everywhere. We are guided in this vision by the priorities highlighted in the school’s new strategic plan, among them “Educating generations of public health leaders.”
Dr. Linda Niccolai, PhD, associate dean for academic affairs, is guiding the implementation of this strategic priority. Dr. Niccolai, who is also professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases), explains how YSPH is ensuring that students excel in understanding, conducting, and using rigorous science to advance population-level health.
Q. This summer, YSPH will launch a Public Health Primer. How does it advance our school’s strategic priority to educate generations of public health scholars, practitioners, and leaders?
A. The Public Health Primer is a series of eight online modules that serve as an introduction to public health. Students will complete the Public Health Primer during the summer before matriculation to make sure they share a common foundation of public health knowledge, and to facilitate deeper engagement with public health concepts as they continue their learning after they arrive on campus.
The primer’s content includes:
- A history and philosophy of public health
- The importance of evidence-based public health practice and policy
- The spectrum of prevention, and
- The determinants of health (biological and genetic, behavioral and psychological; social and structural; and environmental and ecological)
The Public Health Primer also is connected to global health. Ultimately, our goal is to make it publicly available, serving as an introduction to the field of public health for interested individuals worldwide.
Q. What other YSPH strategic priorities does the Public Health Primer addresses?
A. The Public Health Primer also will introduce students to the extraordinary work being conducted at YSPH, with tangible examples of YSPH faculty research. These modules will promote YSPH as a trusted source of public health information in support of our school’s strategic priority to enhance trust in the science and practice of public health.
Q: What are the strengths of the YSPH alumni network?
A. Our goal is to expand career services so that students can access meaningful post-graduate employment and educational opportunities, and to foster an alumni network that continues to provide connections to current students. Our alumni play critical roles in public health scholarship, practice, and leadership worldwide. They work across all sectors essential for promoting population health – public, private, academic, and non-profit – in impactful positions. They remain highly involved in the YSPH community in many ways. Their commitment to our current students and recent graduates is outstanding. They provide career guidance, access to valuable networks, and often job opportunities. We are grateful for their offers of assistance and deep commitment to developing future generations of the public health workforce.
Q. Some of today’s most pressing public health challenges are global. Is global health important now more than ever?
A. There is no doubt that global public health leaders are needed now more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly illustrated the devastating potential of highly transmissible infectious diseases. Confronting the pandemic required that public health leaders coordinate responses, manage resources, disseminate accurate information, and develop and implement control policies. As the world becomes increasingly connected through travel, trade, and the spread of information, public health leaders are needed to coordinate efforts to promote population health. Some of the most pressing public health challenges of today are inherently global in nature, such as climate change, antimicrobial resistance, health equity, global security, and the ethical use of technology and data. Thus, the solutions must also be global.