The Yale Health Initiation Task Force (YHIT) Hosts the First Health fair

The Yale Health Initiation Task Force (YHIT) hosted the first health fair
February 28 in the Church Street South Apartments Community Center. The events was
designed to provide
screenings for common health problems such as diabetes, hypertension,
obesity and various eye diseases, to provide
education on nutrition and the management and mechanisms of various
chronic medical illnesses and to make advocacy and social service resources (including counseling on medical
debt and education on private and public health care assistance programs)
readily available.

Click on link for photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92142&id=585698688&l=8943f

Mikhail C.S.S. Higgins, a student in the M.P.H. program at the Yale School of
Public Health, and C. Brandon Ogbunugafor, an M.D./Ph.D. candidate at the Yale
School of Medicine coordinated the project. It is part of a newly
developed campus-wide effort to promote health and wellness in low-income
communities by building relationships between Yale students and New Haven
residents.

“We want to promote the wellness of people in our neighboring communities who
are marginalized by systemic and financial barriers to healthcare. Our function
is to coordinate the efforts of healthcare providers and patient advocates to
make their services more accessible to all New Haven residents,” Higgins said.

To ensure that individuals who are screened get connected with necessary health
services, YHIT had clinicians at the fair to discuss each participant’s
results as well as to direct them to onsite staff from the Hill Health Center
for follow-up care.

Hill Health Center representatives and advocates from the
Connecticut Health Policy Project were available to discuss affordable ways
to seek health care options in New Haven through enrollment in public and
private assistance programs.

Other fairs will be held periodically throughout the year.

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