School of nursing

Midwifery professor hosts international conference

Helen Varney Professor of Midwifery Holly Kennedy cohosted the Normal Labour & Birth: 20 Years of Evidence and Debate conference with international partners on December 1 and 3, to accommodate time zones in two hemispheres. The sessions welcomed 250 students, faculty members, clinicians, researchers, and public health experts from around the world to discuss everything from optimizing physiologic childbirth to determining which indicators and benchmarks are the most valuable when assessing quality maternal and newborn care. In addition to conducting decades of research in this area, Kennedy is closely aligned with YSN’s Quality Maternal & Newborn Care (QMNC) Research Alliance.

YSN welcomes climate scholars from around the world

YSN partnered with the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate (GAUC) to cohost the Graduate Forum & Global Youth Summit on Net-Zero Future in the fall. Associate Dean for Global Affairs & Planetary Health LaRon Nelson moderated a discussion that included a talk from Kai Chen, an assistant professor of epidemiology at YSPH and the director of research at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health. This year’s forum was cohosted with Tsinghua University in China, Imperial College and Cambridge University in the UK, and Columbia University. 

Associate Dean discusses COP26

LaRon Nelson also shared his expertise on what was at stake during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland. “The most important thing that could be achieved in Glasgow would be for the governments of the world to disincentivize activities that contribute carbon into earth’s atmosphere,” Nelson said. “This could include economic disincentives for health care systems that may spur innovations by nurse leaders and scientists for how to reduce their carbon output generated by healthcare operations, while increasing efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery.” 

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