School Notes: School of Public Health
March/April 2018

Yale World Scholars Program in Public Health accepting first applicants

The China Scholarship Council is expanding its Yale World Scholars Program in Biomedical Sciences, allowing up to ten students from leading Chinese universities to pursue doctoral studies at the Yale School of Public Health. The school expects its first cohort of students to enroll this fall. Hongyu Zhao, chair of the Department of Biostatistics at YSPH and codirector of the Yale program, cited China’s “great need for public health research since its economic and development explosion over the last three decades,” adding, “We hope that this program will yield scholars with high impact for the people of China.”

Living in some Connecticut watersheds linked with Legionnaires’ disease

YSPH researchers seeking to pinpoint the cause of a rise in Legionnaires’ disease in Connecticut over the past decade discovered a link between those living near some of the state’s rivers and within specific watersheds. An analysis of 17 years of data by lead author Kelsie Cassell ’17MPH and a postgraduate research assistant at the Yale School of Public Health found that elevated rainfall and greater stream flow were associated with an increased incidence of the disease. Natural reservoirs appear to have a greater influence on where people contract sporadic legionellosis—a respiratory disease caused by Legionella bacteria—than previously thought. The study was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Top FDA official discusses food safety

Susan T. Mayne, a former Yale School of Public Health professor and now director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), returned to YSPH in November for a dean’s lecture on the FDA’s role in promoting food safety and nutritional guidelines to improve public health. Mayne described how the FDA regulates safety and labeling of 80 percent of all food consumed in the United States and collaborates with other federal and state partners to develop and implement programs and policies related to the composition, quality, safety, and labeling of foods as well as food and color additives.