Advancing Policy, Improving Healthcare Outcomes

Each year, SOM’s Pozen-Commonwealth Fund fellows and students in a similar program at Harvard University travel to New York City for Policy Day, where they learn to advocate for policies that will improve the systems in which they work. Below, four fellows reflect on the Policy Day experience.

Denise Anderson ’27

Four months into the Yale SOM Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership, I can say with confidence that the experience has been everything I hoped for and more. What’s been especially rewarding is applying classroom lessons directly to my day-to-day work at the Center for Health Equity & Wellbeing, New Jersey’s Public Health Institute.

Earlier this fall, my cohort joined Harvard’s Commonwealth Fund Health Policy Fellows for New York Policy Day, a thought-provoking and inspiring experience. We spent the morning with the Commonwealth Fund’s leadership team, including president and CEO Dr. Joseph R. Betancourt and senior vice president Dr. Laurie Zephyrin. These leaders guided us through an exploration of the fund’s work in advancing U.S. health coverage and equitable outcomes.

The afternoon took us to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where we discussed population health strategies, policy initiatives, and health care finance with staffers at the department. The day closed with a warm reception back at the Commonwealth Fund’s historic Harkness Library.

New York Policy Day was more than a field visit; it was a bridge between the rigor of Yale SOM’s EMBA curriculum and the fellowship’s mission to develop equity-centered leaders. The experience brought policy lessons to life, deepened professional connections, and reaffirmed that advancing health equity is truly a collective endeavor—one grounded in continuous learning, collaboration, and shared vision.

Liany Arroyo ’26

Connecting with the Harvard fellows and being in community with like-minded leaders was both energizing and affirming, a reminder of the power of shared purpose and collective vision.

Joanne Fernandez-Booker ’27

Policy Day reminded me of the maxim, “You must see it to be it.” Dr. Betancourt’s journey mirrors so many of our own, and I deeply appreciated his authenticity. He reminded us to believe in ourselves—with both humility and pride—and that even when the path feels daunting, our true north remains the same: to make a difference.

Dr. Zephyrin told us that “your levers of influence aren’t purely financial.” This resonated with me as a first-generation physician with little to no generational wealth. This experience has highlighted the importance of connection—and even more so, building and maintaining those connections.

During our visit to the New York City Department of Health, I was particularly impressed with the HealthyNYC program, which aims to increase the city’s life expectancy to exceed 83 years and avert 7,300 preventable deaths. To ensure continuity across different administrations, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene advocated for the passage of a local law that formally established HealthyNYC as a citywide population health agenda. As a result, the city now requires the department to develop and maintain this agenda over time. Councilwoman Lynn Schulman (who was not present at the visit) has stated this legislation is uniquely designed to exist beyond any single administration, establishing accountability mechanisms that ensure the city government stays laser-focused on achieving these important health goals.

Tina Loarte-Rodriguez ’27

Policy Day at the Commonwealth Fund reminded me that health equity work is, at its core, the work of building systems worthy of the people we serve. Listening to leaders who are shaping national policy and local public health strategy in real time underscored how deeply policy decisions ripple into the day-to-day realities of patients, families, and the clinical workforce that holds our system together. The discussions around Medicaid financing, marketplace instability, and reproductive access were not abstract policy debates. They were a call to protect the caregivers, public health practitioners, and community partners who bridge the gap between intention and impact.

This experience resonates profoundly with my journey as a Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellow at Yale SOM. Our learning is not just academic; it is lived, embodied, and applied. My professional work as an executive director and nurse leader has always been about moving beyond statements of equity toward models of accountability, transformation, and care that dignify both patient and provider. Policy Day reinforced that meaningful change requires both structural imagination and operational courage. It requires us to lead from our values while designing systems that sustain our workforce, empower our communities, and refuse to accept inequity as inevitable. This is the work I am committed to, now and in the future.