Health Equity Fellowship Celebrates Five Years Supporting Local Communities

As part of the Yale School of Public Health’s commitment to improving health equity and supporting community programs in Greater New Haven, the Health Equity Fellowship (HEF) program recently completed its fifth successful year.

The Office of Public Health Practice (OPHP) Community Impact Lab coordinates the health equity fellowship program to ensure that experiential learning at YSPH is equitable and in alignment with our community members’ focus, goals, and needs. OPHP has supported 27 health equity fellows over the past five years through funding, mentorship, and training. Projects are co-designed with local community partners to address equity issues in the communities we serve.

Sofia Morales, MPH, who served as preceptor for a fellowship project with the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, expressed the importance of this model.

“The projects are driven by community organizations, allowing fellows to immerse themselves in work that reflects existing community priorities,” Morales said. “Instead of introducing their own project ideas, fellows contribute meaningfully to ongoing initiatives.This strengthens equitable community-academic partnerships, where both fellows and organizations benefit through shared goals and mutual learning.”

This past summer, three graduate students enrolled in the YSPH’s Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program were chosen as HEF fellows.

“We are continuing to build on projects year after year, following the lead of our New Haven county community partners through co-design and collaboration,” said Susan Nappi, M.P.H. ’01, OPHP’s executive director. “Over half of our annual budget is allocated to our community engagement, which not only provides funding, but also supports capacity building.”

This year’s Fellowship projects include:

• Developing survey questions, focus group guides, and post-focus group surveys to capture perspectives and needs of community members utilizing Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen pantry services.

• Completing a comparative demographic analysis between organization and Connecticut census data, and building a Community Advisory Board for Special Olympics Connecticut.

• Refining and communicating the City of New Haven, Office of Mental Health Initiative’s strategic plan, as well as crafting public health messaging around local suicide prevention efforts.

In addition to providing an opportunity for students to work hand-in-hand with community partners, the fellowship program supports students through weekly reflection sessions facilitated by OPHP’s Community Impact Lab Director, Jason Martinez, MS.

“Every week the students come together to discuss how their fellowships are going, including celebrating successes and discovering that they aren't alone in some of the challenges they may be facing,” Martinez said. “These sessions also focus on topics such as health equity, trauma informed practices, community-based participatory approaches, and how to work with communities better through understanding one's own positionality and taking a journey to become a more reflective leader.”

Given YSPH’s growing commitment to community-engaged scholarship —championed by Dean Megan Ranney— OPHP intends to offer three additional fellowships, increase preceptor support, and provide partner stipends to agencies that host HEF fellows in the summer of 2025.