News Release

Connecticut Health Foundation Appoints New Board Member

“Public Health Expert from Yale University School of Public Health Brings State and National Health Policy, Program Design, Research and Training to Board of Directors”

HARTFORD, CONN – July 27, 2012 – The board of directors of the Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) selected Elaine O’Keefe of New Haven to serve a one-year term, from June 2012 to June 2013, during its recent quarterly meeting.

“The mission of CT Health aligns with my values and life’s work in public health, which has focused heavily on strategies to eliminate health inequities,” says O’Keefe.  “I fully believe that everyone deserves the opportunity for optimal health and believe that it can be achieved if reason and compassion prevail.”

Board chairman, Sanford Cloud Jr. says, “O’Keefe’s appointment to CT Health’s board will play a vital role in moving forward our work to improve the health status of the state’s most unserved and underserved populations.” “Her combined experience of designing and implementing community health programs, advancing health policy, and applying research to achieve lasting heath improvements, will contribute to CT Health’s work to improve health equity.”

Elaine O’Keefe is the executive director of the Office of Community Health (OCH) in the School of Public Health (YSPH) at Yale University. She is also the principal investigator/director for the Connecticut-Rhode Island Public Health Training Center located at the Yale School of Public Health.  O’Keefe also serves as the executive director of the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA), which was established in 2008 to enhance practice based education, research and academic-community health partnerships.

Previously, O’Keefe worked as health director for Stratford and AIDS Division Director for the New Haven Health Department. She has held various state and national leadership positions.

O’Keefe has served as the former president of the Connecticut Association of Directors of Health and past president of the National Association of City and County Health Officials.

Co-author of the Health Equity Index, a tool to assist local health departments to identify and target adverse social and economic conditions associated with health disparities, holds a masters degree in public health from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and is a graduate of the Centers for Disease Control Public Health Leadership Institute Scholar’s Program (1994).

“I am particularly excited by the diversity of individuals and organizations represented on the board and the power of this diversity,” she said. “We all know that effective solutions to Connecticut’s public health problems call for a multi-sector response.”

About the Connecticut Health Foundation

The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) is the state’s largest independent health philanthropy dedicated to improving lives by changing health systems.  Since it was established in July 1999, the foundation has supported innovative grant-making, public health policy research, technical assistance and convening to achieve its mission – to improve the health of the people of Connecticut.

Over the past 12 years, CT Health has awarded grants totaling more than $47 million in three priority areas:

  • Improving access to children’s mental health services
  • Reducing racial and ethnic health disparities
  • Expanding access to and use of children’s oral health services

For more information about the foundation, please visit www.cthealth.org or contact Communications Officer Maryland Grier at Maryland@cthealth.org or 860.724.1580, ext. 21.