September 20, 2019
As health care providers, public health professionals, researchers, and community health advocates, we strongly urge the New York City Council to reject the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice’s plan to build new “borough-based” jails. This plan includes the construction of three to six hospital-based jail units, which it refers to as “Outpatient Therapeutic Housing Units.” These units, operated by the Department of Correction guards and Correctional Health clinicians, would be locked units within or adjacent to the city’s acute care public hospitals. As people who care and advocate for patients with complex medical and mental health needs, many of whom have been incarcerated, we know that all jails are harmful to human health and these units will only deepen the public health crises of criminalization and incarceration.
Jails are harmful to human health. Jails isolate people from their families and communities, deprive people of control and agency over their bodies, subject people to physical and psychological violence and other jail-specific health risks and cause long-lasting trauma. Achieving humane, high quality, and accessible health care for people who are arrested and detained is an urgent task, not only because of these jail-specific health risks, but also because incarcerated people are more likely than the general population to have a chronic disease, a serious mental illness or substance use disorder, HIV, a traumatic brain injury, or a developmental disability. Jails and prisons have always failed at providing healthcare to incarcerated people, and this failure is killing our communities, including the following people who have been killed in city jails (including jail hospitals) in the past several years: Judy Jean, Jason Echeverria, Bradley Ballard, Carlos Mercado, Ronald Spear, Layleen Polanco, Jerome Murdoch, Jairo Polanco Munoz, Jose Rivera, and Rolando Perez. However, the urgency and size of the task to improve health care in jails and prisons and access to adequate mental health discharge planning should not obscure a simple fact: jails are not health care institutions. On the contrary, jails are inherently harmful to human health. Our first responsibility must be to reduce the size of our jail populations and eliminate processes that send people to jail in the first place.
Our health system must maintain a clear line between spaces dedicated towards health care and those dedicated towards policing and punishment. The hospital-based jail units will blur the boundary between spaces for health care and spaces of policing and punishment and exacerbate the violence that marginalized people already experience in public institutions purportedly dedicated to our wellbeing. The presence of police and custodial officers discourages health care utilization, in particular by those who are immigrants or are undocumented, have substance use disorders and/or have mental illnesses. Moreover, jails in hospitals (as well as correctional health in general) can lead to compromised medical ethics in which obligations to care for patients are ceded to “security needs,” and medical professionals face intimidation and violence when they challenge the DOC. The increased presence of law enforcement officers in our hospitals increases the possibility of contact with the criminal legal system, which adds health risks for our patients.
It is inconsistent with our values to communicate to our patients that they should pursue primary and emergency care in the same spaces that they may be detained and punished. As health providers and advocates, we should be seeking to minimize our patients’ contact with the criminal justice system. Jails do not have a place in our hospitals. NYC’s public hospital system, the oldest in the country, was founded to provide accessible, quality health care for all. This plan undermines that mission. We urge the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation to reject this plan as degrading their mission to provide holistic care to vulnerable New Yorkers, and further call on the Health and Hospitals Corporation to re-evaluate their ongoing relationships with Correctional Health and the DOC.
Incarceration should not be the expected outcome for people with mental illness. In the past forty years, the number of people incarcerated who have serious mental illnesses has dramatically increased. Rikers is part of this national trend: 45% of its jail population received mental health care while in jail and 63% struggled with substance use. As a result, as health providers and advocates, we now must expect that most of our patients with serious mental illness will be incarcerated at some point in their lives. Each episode of incarceration disrupts care and stability, worsens illness, and intensifies trauma. Incarceration also deepen racial disparities in mental health treatment: in NYC jails, Black people are more likely to be placed in solitary confinement when they experience mental distress, while white people receive treatment.
In brief, the criminalization and incarceration of mental illness and substance use is a public health crisis. It is a result of both the expansion of our criminal justice system and the failures of our medical and mental health systems. People arrested for actions associated with their health conditions need treatment and support and a health infrastructure that cares for them before the point of arrest. Instead, by building hospital-based jail units and borough-based jail infrastructure for generations to come, the Mayor’s plan guarantees that incarceration will continue to be the expected outcome for our patients with serious mental illness. As health care providers and advocates, we find this outcome unacceptable.
To care for those with mental illness who are currently being arrested and incarcerated, our city needs to expand mental health outreach that is independent of the NYPD and mental health care that is not supervised by the Department of Correction. In recent years, in response to family and community members organizing to oppose state violence against people with mental illness, the city has sought to reform the criminal justice institutions responsible for that violence. ThriveNYC has promised to train NYPD officers to respond to mental health crises, training that has little to no documented history of success.
According to the city, the planned hospital-based jail units will be additions to this “correctional health continuum,” a continuum that should be dismantled, not strengthened. As Los Angeles recently acknowledged in rejecting the plan to build a new “mental health” jail, jailers aren’t mental health professionals and can’t be “re-trained” to provide health care. As health providers and community advocates, we believe investing in mental-health responsive policing and a corrections-based health continuum is the wrong approach. “Reformed” policing and “improved” jail health care are not adequate replacements for a functioning health care system. We urge NYC to invest in what works: early intervention using community-based infrastructure is the best and most reliable way to care for people with serious mental illness. For example, Kendra's Law, which provides for community-based assisted outpatient treatment for individuals with serious mental illness and a history of arrest, has been shown to reduce contact with the criminal legal system by 83%, reduce suicide attempts by 55%, and increase treatment compliance by 51%. Care works; cages don't.
The NYPD and the Department of Correction have long been the source of violence against our communities, and especially those of us who are Black, Brown, immigrants, poor, disabled, women, youth, and/or transgender. Our responsibility to our patients, therefore, is to reduce contact with the criminal justice system, not expand it. To do so, we need more resources for mental health outreach and services so that our patients can remain connected to care. But we should also pilot non-law enforcement responses to behavioral health crises. Evidence-based programs, such as Eugene, Oregon’s Crisis Assistance Helping Out in the Streets (“CAHOOTS”), which has been in operation for over thirty years, serve as reminders that we should trust our public health common sense: behavioral health crises should be addressed by our medical and mental health system, not our criminal legal system.
We need to expand our medical and mental health care system and invest further in long-term supportive housing for our patients and their caregivers. Caring for mental illness and chronic physical illness, and the various crises these may introduce into a person’s life and larger community, is complex. It requires an expansive and flexible system of support and care that honors the role that families and communities play in keeping their loved ones safe and is prepared for the traumas these patients have experienced. Patients need safe spaces in which their autonomy will be respected and they will receive a wide range of treatment options. The criminal justice system does not, and cannot, meet any of these needs. But it is the criminal justice system to which the city has turned to resolve these complex challenges.
As health providers and community advocates, we reject the criminalization of mental illness and substance use and insist that the City Council, following the recent decision in Los Angeles, reject the Mayor’s jail construction plan. We strongly condemn the hospital-based jail units as further criminalizing, stigmatizing, and exacerbating health conditions among the most vulnerable among us. Instead, we call on the Mayor and City Council to shut down Rikers now, and invest in the community-based, trauma-informed, low-threshold clinical, therapeutic, harm reduction, and housing programs that allow all our community members to thrive and live with dignity.
Signed,
- Alexander Adia, MPH, Brown University
- Anika Akhter
- Katarina Alajbegovic, University of Michigan
- Eden Almasude, MD, Yale University
- Dalila Madison Almquist, MPH
- Julianna Alson, University of Washington School of Medicine
- Tiffany Alunan, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Kelvin Ampem-Darko, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Anjoli Anand, MD, MPH
- Juliet Anderson, Alliance Psychological Services of New York
- Cesar Andrade, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Gabriella Ansah, MSW
- Anushka R Aqil, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Matthew Aragon
- Sofia De Arrigunaga, Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health
- Annie Atwater, MSW, Black & Pink, Deeper Than Water
- Tigran Avoundjian, University of Washington
- Omid Bagheri, MPH, University of Washington School of Public Health
- Michael Bakal, UC Berkeley
- Nell W Baldwin, MD, Montefiore Hospital
- Zinzi Bailey
- Esha Bansal
- Lina Barbenes
- Lisa Baron, MD
- Ashwini Batchu
- Sabrina Bazile, MSc
- Gretchen Begley, LMSW
- Ali Mateo Belen
- Leo Beletsky, Northeastern University
- Tarik Bell, Red Hook Initiative
- Mary Berecka
- Ellie Bergren
- Melanie Berkowitz, LMSW
- Krish Bhatt, Columbia University
- Usama Bilal, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health
- Evan Bissell, MPH, MCP, UC Berkeley
- Nannette Blaize
- Julia Blencowe, LCSW
- James Blum
- Xavier L. Bost, NYC Dept of Health &Mental Hygiene
- Steven Botticelli, NYU
- Philippe Bourgois, UCLA School of Medicine
- Dora Bowman, LMSW, PPNYC
- Nicole Boyd, UCSF School of Medicine
- Jen Brown, LICSW
- Molly Brown
- Samantha Brown, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Libby Brubaker, DO, Institute for Family Health
- Joel Bumol, MD, Montefiore Medical Center
- Katherine Busalacchi, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Miriam Callahan, MS3, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
- Erica Cao
- Alexia Capsuto, MD
- Jessica J. Chairez, Chaffey College
- Anyun Chatterjee, MPH, Richland Public Health
- Chloe S. Chaudhury, NYU School of Medicine
- Dhruvi Chauhan, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
- Saoirse Chen, MPH
- Tara Chism
- Doris Chiu
- Hye Young Choi, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Daniel Chong, MPH, Columbia University
- Lauren Clapp, MSW, Hunter College
- Samarrah Clayman
- Jane Coffee, LCSW, RN, Yale University
- Jake Coffey
- Gretchen Cohoon, New York University
- Diana Colavita, Mental Health Peer Specialist
- Alexis Cooke, PhD
- Spring Cooper, CUNY School of Public Health
- Phillipe Copeland, Boston University School of Social Work
- Ray Cornbill, Cornbill Associates
- Anibal Cortes
- Tori Cowger, T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health
- Jose Cruz, Mount Sinai Health System
- Poonam Daryani, MPH
- Anindita Dasgupta, MPH, PhD, Columbia University
- Yuki Davis, Harvard School of Public Health
- Juliana DePietro, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
- Hope DeRogatis, RN, MSW
- Fiona Desland, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Peggy Desiderio, Mt Sinai St Lukes
- Chanelle Diaz, MD, MPH
- Arash Diba, Housing Works
- Ana Djordjevic, PNHP
- Tywana Donaldson
- Kamini Doobay, NYU/Bellevue, NYC Coalition to Dismantle Racism in the Health System
- Susan Dooha, Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY
- Sarah Duncan, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
- Michael Dunn, LMSW
- Sally Eberhardt, MA, MSW, LSW
- Oscar Echeverria, Harvard Student
- Ernest S Egu MD, Montefiore Medical Center
- Mark P. Eisenberg, M.D., Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot, MPH, U. Washington School of Public Health
- Leo Eisenstein, MD, NYU/ Bellevue Hospital
- Devynn Emory, BSN, RN, LMT, NYU
- Aubri Esters, Boston Users Union
- Michelle Fei, RN, BSN, CLC
- Lorraine Fei, Tulane University School of Medicine
- Justin Feldman, NYU School of Medicine
- Christine Ferguson-Mizell, LCSW, Private Practice
- Fabian Fernandez, UCSF/UCB
- Juan Ferre, CUNY Graduate Center
- Vanessa Ferrel, MD MPH, Montefiore Medical Center
- Alec Feuerbach, Mt Sinai School of Medicine
- Natalie Flath, MPH
- Dina Fico
- Derek Fine, MPH, Columbia University
- Felipe Findley, SoCal Club
- Eve Fine, LCSW
- Robin Fink, MPH, UC Berkeley
- Chandra L. Ford, UCLA Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health
- Hannah Forsberg, San Francisco State University
- Minerva Francis, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Christel Francois, MD, Montefiore
- Sam Friedensohn
- Noelle Fries, MPHc, CUNY School of Public Health
- Jeannia Fu, Yale School of Public Health
- Jennifer Gallo, MPH, CUNY
- Emily Galpern
- Samy Galvez, MPH, Yale University
- Christopher Garcia-Wilde, MD/MPH Candidate, University of Miami
- Jared Garfinkel, MA, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Brie Garner, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health
- Saliyah George, CUNY School of Public Health
- Nathalia Gibbs
- Darcy Gill
- Matthew Glenn, MS, NYU School of Medicine
- Jade Goetz BA, UW-Madison Wisconsin
- Marji Gold, MD
- Scott Goldberg, Montefiore
- Andrew Goldstein, MD, MPH
- Hannah Goldwater, RN, NYU
- Cynthia Golembeski, MPH, Rutgers University
- Sara Gómez, MSW, Columbia University
- Samuel Gordon
- Amanda Graff, Harvard University
- Sandy Grande, Connecticut College
- Julie Graves, MD, MPH, PhD
- Linda D Green MD, George Washington Hospital Clinical Faculty
- Priscilla Grim
- Richard Guccione
- Juan Gudino, University of Iowa College of Public Health
- Alison Gurley, PsyD
- Akua Gyamerah, Columbia University ‘17 & UCSF
- Gabrielle H, Icahn School of Medicine
- Theodore Hanna
- Sarah Han, UC Berkeley
- Lorien Harker, The University of Colorado
- Taylor Harrell, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Fatima Hassan
- Leah Haykin, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Emily Heinlein, MPH
- Natalia Hernandez, Harvard School of Public Health
- Imani Keith Henry, MSW, MPA
- Bri-Ann Hernandez, UCLA
- John Hessburg, MD/Ph.D '21, SUNY Downstate
- Sarah Hill, MPHTM, MS1, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
- David Himmelstein, MD, CUNY
- Margaret Horwitz, MSW
- E. Elizabeth Howard
- Tiffany Huang, MPH, NYU Langone Health
- Caroline Hugh, MPH, Columbia University
- Richard Hunte, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
- Adam Hunter, UNC School of Medicine, Harvard School of Public Health
- Ellen Isaacs, MD
- Jaquelyn Jahn, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Pavithra Jaisankar
- El Layla Johnson, MSW
- Bedilia Jones, Family and Social Medicine
- Emily Jones, UCLA
- Benjamin Jones, UCSF
- Peter Joo, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Ashly E. Jordan, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy
- Amelia Joselow, MPH
- Sandhya Kajeepeta, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Priya Kandaswamy, Mills College
- Jessica Kant, LICSW, Boston University
- Terry Kant
- Farzana Kapadia, NYU
- Hebron Kelecha, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Mona Kelkar
- Laura K. Kerr, PhD
- Lina Khoeur, UCSF School of Medicine
- Betty Kolod, Mount Sinai/Bronx VA
- Sarah Koster, MPH MSN
- Adam Kraus, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Nancy Krieger, PhD
- Liz Kroboth, MPH
- Hannah Krystal
- Christopher Kuhner, NYU School of Medicine
- Tracy Kwon, Registered Nurse
- Amy LaCount, MD, Montefiore
- Bishop Lampart
- Emma Larson, LMSW
- Martha Larson, LMSW
- Marc Lavietes MD
- Aurit Lazerus, Pys.D., Private Practice
- Naomi Legros, CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy
- Jordan Leon-Atkins, MPH
- Ashley Lewis, NYU, MD-PhD candidate
- Lili
- Alison Liss, NYU School of Medicine
- Ashley Little
- Pike Long, MPH, Public Health Justice Collective
- Alana López, LMSW, MA
- Javier López, Red Hook Initiative
- Lucas Lopez
- Kizzi Belfon Louison, MPH
- Katie Luedecke, RN, Howard Brown Health
- Andrea Lyman, MD, MSc, MS
- Michael Lyon, Public Health Justice Collective
- Ciru M
- Deepa M, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
- Daniel Madrigal, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
- Sunny Maguire, lcsw
- Shreya Mahajan
- Yash Maniar, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Claribel Marmol, RN, MPH
- Olivia Marcus, University of Connecticut
- Rose Markowitz, Planned Parenthood
- Lauren Mariotti, LCSW
- Monica J Martinez, MPH
- Amanda M. Marturano, LMSW, Hunter College
- Duncan Maru, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
- Jennifer Masdea
- Mariya Masyukova, MD MS, Montefiore Medical Center
- Pia Mauro
- Oriana Mayorga, Union Theological Seminary
- Catherine McBride, MSW, Red Hook Initiative
- Katie McCann, Boston University MSW '19, MPH '20
- Steven A. McDonald, MD, Columbia University
- Kathryn Ruth McFadden, CNM RNC-NIC
- James McGough, M.D., M.S., David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
- Ericka Medina, Red Hook Initiative
- Dan Meltzer
- Jake Mendales, MPH, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
- Carrie Miceli, UCLA
- Evan C. Milton
- Carolina Miranda, MD, Montefiore Medical Center
- Kevin Moore, BSN, RN
- Claire Morley, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Rani Mukherjee, UCSF School of Medicine
- Luc Figueiredo Miller, Boston University MPH, Brooklyn Law School '22
- Jessica Milne, MPH, University of Michigan (2018)
- Christine Mitchell, ScD
- Juliana Morris, MD, EdM, UCSF
- Michelle Morse
- Isabella Morton, UCLA
- Morgan Moore, Healthcare Equity Action League of New York
- Timothy Muldoon, Columbia University
- Chelsea Mullen, LMSW
- Emma Chew Murphy, MD, Montefiore
- Sumathi Narayana, MD, Montefiore Medical Center
- Vilmarie Fraguada Narloch, PsyD
- Charlotte Neary-Bremer, UCLA
- Vanessa Nisperos, Red Hook Initiative
- Whitney Hewlett Noel
- Martha Ockenfels-Martinez, MPH, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
- Iris Ryn Olson, Boston University School of Public Health
- Itohan Omorodion, MPH
- Julia Chinyere Oparah, Mills College
- Chris Palmedo, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy
- Urvashi Pandya, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
- Michael Pappas
- Skylar Park, RPSGT
- Yeji Park, MS, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Krysta Parker, NYU School of Social Work
- Rachel Parks, UCLA
- Nina Parikh, NYU, College of Global Public Health
- Natasha Pasternack, LMSW, Hunter College 2014
- Andrew Pastor, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Elizabeth Pataki, retired RN, CNA retiree
- Shravani Pathak, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
- Luke Patterson
- Kara Percival
- Ruben Vega Perez, MPH, MD Candidate, Icahn School of Medicine
- Winn Periyasamy, Columbia MSPH '16, Fordham Law '23
- Meghan Peterson, MPH
- Amber Akemi Piatt, MPH, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
- Natalie Plasencia, RN
- Zoe Pleasure, MPH, Mailman School of Public Health
- Emma Pliskin, MPH, CUNY School of Public Health
- Karyn Pomerantz, GWU SPH, retired
- Madison Poore
- Delaine Andrea Powerful, MPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Seth J. Prins, PhD, MPH, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Tracy Pugh, Mailman school of public health
- Jennifer Purdon, University of Connecticut
- Susan Putnins, MSW
- Lauren Quijano
- Jake Radell, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Azwade Rahman, SUNY Upstate Medical University
- Lisa Ramadhar, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
- Cameron Rasmussen, CUNY Graduate Center / Columbia University
- Jishian Ravinthiran, MSc Psychiatry, Yale Law School, JD Candidate
- Kelsey Reeder, LCSW
- Thais Reis-Henrie, Harvard University
- Garrett Reuscher, Silberman School of Social Work
- Susan Reverby, Wellesley College
- Gary Richmond, UCSF School of Nursing
- Katherine Robbins, MPH, Campaign for NY Health
- Robert M Rock, MD, Montefiore Medical Center
- Sydney Rodriguez
- India Rogers-Shepp
- Natisha S Romain, Red Hook Initiative, Inc
- Brian Romero, LMSW
- Noah Rosenberg, NYU School of Medicine
- Patrick Ross, MPH
- Ariela Rotenberg, LMSW
- Emma Rubin, MPH
- William Ruhm
- Cindy Saenz, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Michelle Sainte, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Katherine Schaff, DrPH, MPH, UC Berkeley
- Jessica Schiff, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
- Will Schlesinger, UCLA
- Jenna Schmitz, MPH, Columbia University
- Gabriel Schwartz, Harvard University (PhD Candidate)
- Joey Shemuel, UCSF
- Rey Shen
- T.Lee Shostack LICSW, South End Community Health Center Boston
- Mali Sicora, LMSW
- Rue Silver, MPH
- Amanda Slagter, Recovery Coach and Educator
- Marlena Smith, LICSW
- Riley Marie Smith, AIDS Action Committee
- Natasha Sokol, Brown University
- William Somerville, Alliance Psychological Services of New York
- Josh Spiro
- Amanda Spishak-Thomas, Columbia University
- Peter Staley
- Melissa Stanger, LMSW
- Cedra Starks, MPH
- Scot B Sternberg, LMFT
- Marisa Stertz
- Eric Sun, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, MD Candidate; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, MPH Candidate
- Anna Larisa Sunderland, MSN, CNM, WHNP-BC
- Brianna Suslovic, LMSW
- Princess Sutherland, BA-JHU, MPH-ISMMS
- Uma Tadepalli, MD, UCSF
- Hina Tai, MPH, St. George's University School of Medicine
- Ashlie Taylor, RN
- Nicky Tettamanti, Columbia University
- Kayla Thomas, Yale University PhD student
- Michel'le Thomas, Red Hook Initiative
- Teresa Thompson, LCSW
- Brenda Thorpe
- Emily Titon
- Abigail Todras, LMSW
- Amy Tong
- Erika Totten
- Michelle Tran, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Janell Tryon, MPH
- Sandra Turner, MD
- Laura Ucik, MD, Montefiore
- Adaku Utah, Harriets Apothecary
- Iris Vargas
- Tejas Venkat-Ramani, MPH, Correctional Health Services
- Shellae Versey
- Madeleine Vidger
- Emma Vignola, CUNY School of Public Health
- Rachel Viqueira, MHS, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Ben Wagner, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, MD Candidate
- Sarah Wakeman, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Jennifer Flynn Walker, Center for Popular Democracy
- Joanna Watterson, NYU School of Medicine MS3
- Julie Wegener, MD
- Emily Weinrebe, LMSW
- Adam Whalen, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
- Sophie Wheelock, MPH, Yale School of Public Health
- Allison Wilens, Decriminalize Health
- Tevina Willis, Red Hook Initiative
- Johannes Mosquera Wilson, RN
- Erica P Wood, MPH, New York University College of Global Public Health
- Anastasia Woods, Tulane Univeristy
- Steffie Woolhander, MD, CUNY
- Rebecca Yao, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health
- Mike Yepes, MPH, Harvard Kennedy School
- Vicky Zambrano
- Noor Zanial, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Noah Zazanis
- Xiaoyi Zeng, Icahn School of Medicine
- Helen Zhou, NYU SOM
- Eleni Zimiles, LMSW, Critical Therapy Center
- Michael Zingman, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons
- Sabrina Zionts, CNM
(Institutional affiliations are listed only for identification and do not signal any official endorsement.)