Skip to Main Content

Debbie Humphries, PhD, MPH, MA

Assistant Professor Adjunct of Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases)
DownloadHi-Res Photo

Additional Titles

Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health

About

Titles

Assistant Professor Adjunct of Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases)

Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health

Biography

Dr. Humphries has a broad background in public health research and practice. She has been a consultant in the areas of diet and physical activity behavior change, sustainability of community health programs, program monitoring and evaluation, and training in participatory monitoring and evaluation for organizations in Vietnam, Africa and in the United States. She has extended that reach through her Practice-based Community Health Research course which places student groups with agencies in the State of Connecticut to plan and evaluate programs. Sample projects include: Determining the Best Time to Implement Routine HIV Testing in Jails; Barriers to Accessing Health Care and Health Needs of Undocumented Immigrants; Evaluation of HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and care in Connecticut Correctional Facilities; and Strategies to Reduce Low Birth Weight in New Haven: An Evaluation of the Outreach Strategy of the New Haven Maternal and Child Health Department. Humphries is also a member of the Community Research Engagement steering committee at Yale.

Dr. Humphries’ research addresses interactions between nutrition and infectious disease, as well as programmatic approaches to improving public health. This work has taken her to Asia and Africa where she has studied environmental factors and intestinal helminth infections and their relationship to anemia as well as effectiveness of intervention programs. She is currently collaborating on a longitudinal study to characterize parasite and host factors affecting response to deworming in Ghana.

Appointments

Education & Training

MA
Hartford Seminary, Transformative Leadership and Spirituality (2021)
PhD
Cornell University (1996)
MPH
University of Michigan/Ann Arbor (1992)

Research

Overview

Dr. Humphries has a broad background in public health practice. She has consulting expertise in the areas of diet and physical activity behavior change, sustainability of community health programs, program monitoring and evaluation, and training in participatory monitoring and evaluation.

Dr. Humphries has research experience in relationships between nutritional deficiencies and infectious disease in resource-poor environments. She is interested in interdisciplinary research on nutrition, immune function, and disease.


Engaging with students in the classroom, on theses and internships provides Dr. Humphries with valuable insights and the opportunity to investigate different perspectives and approaches. She has supported students in conducting research in topics as varied as mapping access to health centers in Burkina Faso, developing a game for teaching communities about malaria transmission, mapping access to food and cigarettes in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and policy approaches to reducing the diabetes impact in India. She enjoys experimenting in the classroom with pedagogical methods that combine academic concepts with practical experience.

Relationship between hookworm infection, response to treatment, and nutritional status in school children in Ghana; measures of research capacity for community based organizations; impact of public health resource sharing on service cost and quality in Connecticut and Massachusetts

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Developing Countries; Ghana; Global Health; HIV; Hookworm Infections; Malaria; Nutrition Policy; Parasitology; Public Health; Vietnam

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Debbie Humphries's published research.

Publications

2024

2023

2022

2021

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    American Society for Nutrition - Global Nutrition Council

  • activity

    YSPH Sustainability Committee

  • activity

    YSPH Practicum Advisory Committee

  • honor

    Hartranft Award

  • honor

    C.E.A. Winslow Award

Get In Touch

Contacts

Locations

  • 135 College Street

    Academic Office

    Ste 200, Rm 234

    New Haven, CT 06510