YuLin Zhen, Photography Editor

The Community Alliance for Research and Engagement, or CARE, is on a mission to reduce health disparities in New Haven.

Based out of the Yale School of Public Health and Southern Connecticut State University, CARE aims to improve the health and well-being of New Haveners by providing community-based solutions to health challenges and disparities. 

CARE focuses on chronic disease prevention by tackling risk factors among underserved communities, with attention to underlying social structures. 

“If somebody had chronic diseases like diabetes, we used to tell them to eat five fruits/veggies a day and exercise 30 minutes a day,” Alycia Santilli, CARE’s director, told the News. “However, we didn’t really consider the context and the communities in which people are operating. Our approach is to address systems that are in place that impede people from being able to access healthy foods, eat healthy foods, get physically active.” 

Yale and Southern Connecticut State University join the efforts

CARE was started in 2007 at the School of Public Health under the leadership of Jeannette Ickovics, a professor of social and behavioral sciences. Then, the initiative focused on finding solutions to chronic disease disparities, particularly obesity, through community-based participatory research. 

The initiative worked with the New Haven Health Department to engage with communities about their needs. Soon, CARE realized that addressing social structures that lead to chronic diseases would be the better path forward.

In 2016, Yale School of Public Health merged efforts with SCSU’s College of Health and Human Services to work on CARE. 

“SCSU is a local state university that has much more community connection and serves the greater New Haven community,” Santilli told the News. “SCSU is a more representative place to house an organization focused on New Haven, but the benefits of Yale’s prestige and access to researchers who are internationally known is unmatched as well.”

Addressing disparities in New Haven

According to Kathleen Duffany, director of research at CARE and a School of Public Health professor, New Haven has concentrated pockets of low-income communities which happen also to be communities of color. 

For example, more than 30 percent of Latino populations and 24 percent of Black populations experience food insecurity, compared to 12 percent of their white counterparts. These populations also experience higher rates of asthma and obesity.

Even though CARE tackles a wide range of health factors, from food insecurities to transportation safety to vaccine equity, its work ultimately involves changing public health approaches to take into account social context in public health campaigns.

Thus, CARE’s work can be put into two categories: chronic disease prevention and the development of health leaders in New Haven’s local communities.

For example, pantry staff and volunteers categorize the healthiness of foods at local food pantries in an initiative called Supporting Wellness at Pantries. CARE also works to persuade local businesses to become more breast or chest-feeding friendly in offices, which the organization believes promotes nutritional health for infants and lowers turnover rates for businesses. 

As part of CARE’s New Haven Health Leadership program, New Haveners identify, create and implement solutions to various inequities, such as from mobile farmers markets and urban walking trails. 

For example, Duffany and her team suggested adding new modules to the “Basics of Breastfeeding” healthcare provider training in New Haven that were focused on racial inequities in the breastfeeding experience. 

“Our hope is that this one-hour training module will [help] healthcare providers to adapt their practices to address inequities in breastfeeding care and support,” Duffany told the News. 

The organization works directly with a range of partners, from supporting various school and community gardens, to encouraging students to limit their screen time with public schools. 

Sofia Morales, CARE’s program manager, said the community members’ voices should set CARE’s priorities. 

“One important approach is also identifying what are the assets that the New Haven community has,” Morales told the News. “New Haven is a rich, powerful, vibrant city and we really look to honor and build upon those assets that already exist within the New Haven community.”

Policymaking involvement and government partnerships

CARE also works with local governments to cement change for local communities. 

For example, the organization has worked closely with the New Haven Food Policy Council around urban gardening and urban agriculture and has collaborated with the New Haven Department of Transportation to initiate the Safe Routes for All plan. 

CARE board members have also served on legislative task forces, such as the “Food Is Medicine” task force, to inform policymakers about food insecurities. 

For the last five years, CARE has been receiving federal funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce food insecurities for certain racial groups.  

Moving forward, CARE plans to use part of the CDC’s grant to amplify its bike share program to encourage physical activity and improve the work of the Breastfeeding Task Force.

Additionally, the organization plans to expand its work at the state level. CARE has already taken its health leadership programs to cities like Hartford and Bridgeport with grants from the Connecticut Department of Public Health. And interest is growing in cities like Hamden and West Haven for implementations of SWAP to improve nutrition access. 

“CARE is working towards system change so that everyone in our communities can have access to health,” Morales said. “It makes me happy, proud, and humbled to do this work as a part of an organization that is working to address the root causes of health disparities in a collaborative and meaningful way with our communities. And we want to provide this to other communities in Connecticut as well.”

Applications for the 2025 cohort of CARE’s Health Leadership Program are now open.