Public Health Day 2025

Open to all students in grades 9-12.

Register here: https://onha.yale.edu/PublicHealth25

Public health looks at the conditions in our community to keep the MOST people healthy- physically, socially, emotionally, and economically.

Join us to learn about critical public health issues affecting communities like New Haven – and how you can make a difference – with students from the Yale School of Public Health! Explore innovative ways to tackle issues before they reach the hospital, from health messaging in music, to addressing homelessness, and designing your own health technology that benefits your local community. 

Students will be placed in 3 out of 6 workshops based on their preferences:

• Mic Check: Music, Public Health - Explore the connection between music and health, specifically focusing on substance (drug) use in music lyrics. Learn why ethics and community engagement are critical to public health research.
• Storytelling for Public Health: How to Improve Local Screening for High Blood Pressure in New Haven - Examine the rates of high blood pressure in New Haven. Imagine health-messaging campaigns to improve the rate of screening locally.
• Saving Lives: Tackling Gun Violence Through Public Health - Learn how the photovoice ​​​​​​method is used in firearm injury prevention (FIP) research and practice. Experiment with and discuss photography as a tool for expressing experiences and perspectives on firearm injuries. Contribute to a shared FIP collage project.
• Addressing Homelessness in Your Community - Discuss homelessness in Connecticut as a public health issue and what you can do to help. Assemble toiletry kits to be distributed to those most vulnerable in New Haven. 
• Designing Health Technology - Join a 90-minute “hackathon” with the Consumer Health Informatics Lab and learn about user-centered design principles. Collaborate in small teams to identify a local public health challenge (such as mental health, homelessness, water quality, community empowerment), develop a simple digital prototype (using Figma), and present your ideas. 
• Advocacy in Action: From Problems to Solution - Explore grassroots public health advocacy through interactive problem-solving. Walk through how public health experts identify a community health issue, engage in a coalition-based focus group, and develop solutions.