School Notes: School of Public Health
November/December 2020

Tracking Connecticut’s climate change

The Yale School of Public Health’s Center on Climate Change and Health released a new report on changing conditions in Connecticut that, left untreated, could have serious long-term health consequences for the state’s nearly 3.5 million residents. The 100-page report tracks 19 indicators grouped into four categories—temperature, extreme events, infectious diseases, and air quality—that were developed using publicly available data. “We found disturbing trends in all categories,” said the report’s lead author, Laura Bozzi, the center’s director of programs. “This report provides policymakers, health professionals, advocates, and the general public with the information they need to take timely action to protect public health.”

YSPH creates online MPH program

The Yale School of Public Health is now offering an online executive master’s degree in public health for professionals interested in acquiring hands-on leadership and management training. Most of the coursework will be completed remotely, with three five-day, in-person, intensive sessions on the Yale campus over two years. The new Executive MPH encompasses all of the strengths that define the Yale School of Public Health academic experience—faculty excellence, individualized attention, curricular innovation, and interdisciplinary approaches to public health challenges. “We developed this program with a focus on the knowledge and skills [that] working health professionals need to advance in their chosen careers,” said program director Martin Klein ’86MPH.

Governor urges caution

Connecticut is emerging from the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in relatively good shape. While a large number of people suffered and died during the height of the outbreak in April, the number of new infections in the state is now very low, students are returning to school, and businesses are reopening. But the threat is not over, Gov. Ned Lamont ’80MBA cautioned during a panel discussion hosted by the Yale School of Public Health in September and livestreamed to ensure social distancing. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said.