About the School of Public Health |
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About the School of Public HealthFounded in 1915, Yale’s School of Public Health is one of the oldest of the nationally accredited schools of public health. It began when, in 1914, the University received an endowment from the Anna M.R. Lauder family to establish a chair in public health at the Yale Medical School. This chair was filled a year later by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, who was and is still considered to be the “founder of public health” at Yale. In its early years, the department was a catalyst for public health reform in Connecticut and the health surveys prepared by Winslow and his faculty and students led to considerable improvements in public health organization. He also successfully campaigned to improve health laws in Connecticut and for the passage of a bill that created the State Department of Public Health. In the 1960’s it was decided to merge the Department of Public Health with the Section of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, a unit with the Department of Internal Medicine. The Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) was the result of this merger. Today, faculty and students at the Yale School of Public Health continue to strive toward Winslow’s goal of “…preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting physical and mental health and well-being through organized community effort…and [developing] the social machinery to assure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance or improvement of health.” |