Karla Hanson
More than 500,000 veterans live in New York State. Over half of these veterans are 65 or older and 28% live with a disability. Clear Path for Veterans (CPV) is a multi-service nonprofit organization helping service members, veterans, and their families. In 2024, CPV provided more than 10,000 services across 43 NYS counties. For example, the CPV peer support program connects veterans with instrumental support (such as food, housing, healthcare) and emotional support using a “one-size-fits-one” approach to address individual needs…
Public health is not achieved simply by ensuring there are enough doctors to provide services in a community. To support community wellbeing, unmet social needs that prevent access to care must also be addressed. “Lack of transportation, lack of internet and computer access, high cost and limited availability of childcare, and the lack of services outside typical work hours are all barriers to care,” says Nicole Zulu, Director of Health Planning for the Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County. “This is especially true in rural areas…
Scammers, beware! Cornell researchers created a multi-step protocol to detect and remove fake data created by bots and humans attempting to enroll in online research studies, thus preventing biased results and unwarranted monetary compensation to bad actors. The protocol is the first specifically designed for data collected in rural communities, for which existing filtering protocols are not adapted. Researchers developed the protocol when a health improvement research study was forced to move online during the pandemic. The study, in collaboration with Texas A&M AgriLife Research…
In December 2021, a team of Cornell University MPH Program faculty were awarded a 2021-22 Engaged Research Grant from the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. The group, led by Lara Parrilla, lecturer and community and academic partnership manager, was one of two awardees this year. These grants are specifically designed to incentivize undergraduate participation in faculty and staff-led research that strengthens the wellbeing of communities, and award up to $30,000. “It’s an honor to be selected for this research grant,” said Parrilla. “I look forward to…
Dr. Karla Hanson began her career in public health as director of planning and development at a federally qualified primary care health center. This experience led her to pursue graduate school in health policy at the Wagner School of Public Service at NYU, where she researched policies and trends regarding health insurance and access to health care for children and caregivers, particularly those from low-income households in the U.S. Before joining the Master of Public Health (MPH) program faculty in 2019, Dr. Hanson was in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell, the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, and the Milano School of Policy and Management at…
While training in social sciences in college, Dr. Karla Hanson knew she was interested in engaged learning—“except we didn’t even have the language for it at that time,” she remembers. After a job writing grant proposals for a community health center, she went back to school for a PhD in health policy. “Healthcare started to feel like a last resort,” she says. Her policy focus gradually shifted toward food security and access to healthy food. “Food is so foundational to health,” says Hanson, who spent nearly two decades as a researcher and professor of practice in Cornell’s Division of Nutritional Sciences before joining the MPH Program faculty…
As unprecedented unemployment rates and disruptions in food supply chains have continued to unfold around the world, the pandemic has led to a substantial rise in food insecurity, which includes actual and perceived lack of access to nutritious food. In the United States and in New York State, record numbers of people have filed for unemployment since March 2020, leading to reductions in income available to purchase food. “We were increasingly seeing reports that people were turning to gardening, fishing, backyard poultry, foraging, and hunting during the pandemic, and seeing people outside doing these activities,” says Dr. Kathryn Fiorella, Food Systems and Health concentration chief with the MPH Program. Teaming up with…
This summer the MPH Program will welcome five new faculty and staff. These hires expand the depth and breadth of our program’s capacity and expertise and we are exited for you to meet them! Lorraine Francis, DrPH, MHA, is a native of Trinidad and Tobago with a passion for public health that spans over 18 years. She has previously worked in a public health laboratory and more recently in the Surveillance Division of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), formerly the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC). Her training and experiences include – epidemiology, surveillance, emergency and outbreak response, laboratory systems, environmental health, tourism and health and research. She has a keen interest in…