WHAT WE DO

In 1999, six Yale undergraduates began teaching health workshops in New Haven public high schools in order to fill the gap left by an underfunded, understaffed district health program. Today, ninety Yale volunteers teach (and often serve as the primary source of) health education in eight New Haven public high schools. In 2003, the founding members of the New Haven group established Peer Health Exchange, Inc. in order to replicate this successful program in other communities with unmet health education needs. PHE's first sites are in New York City, where there are currently only 196 trained health instructors to teach required health courses to 1.1 million public school students (NYC Dept. of Education Press Release, 2/04).

A PHE Health Educator leading a workshop at East Side Community High School.

Peer Health Exchange has begun to fill the need for comprehensive health education in New York City by training 80 Barnard, Columbia, and NYU undergraduate volunteers to teach health workshops in public high schools, thereby increasing the number of trained health instructors in New York public schools by over 40%. In November, 2004, PHE Health Educators began teaching health workshops on topics ranging from decision-making and sexual health to substance abuse and nutrition in five New York City public high schools: The Academy for Careers in Sports in the South Bronx, The Landmark School in Midtown Manhattan, and Marta Valle High School, East Side Community High School, and University Neighborhood High School on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In all of these schools, Peer Health Exchange is the primary source of health information for the students it serves, reaching 400 teenagers who would not otherwise receive health education this year.