Evidence. Outreach. Action.

Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health

Today’s population health challenges are complex. Addressing these challenges and building environments that value and promote health for everyone requires expertise from multiple scientific disciplines and public and private partners.

Guided by the principles of scientific rigor, equity, justice, community engagement, and multidisciplinary and multi-institution collaboration, the Lerner Center’s mission is to improve population and community health through research, education, outreach and health promotion programming focused on the social, spatial and structural determinants of physical, mental and behavioral health and health disparities.

With faculty affiliates from public health, sociology, psychology, economics, medicine and public administration, the Lerner Center’s approach to research is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.

Established in 2011 with an endowment from Sid and Helaine Lerner, the center fulfills its mission through the interrelated pillars of research, education, advocacy and action.

Register and learn more about the Lerner Center’s inaugural Social Impact Competition

Student Opportunities

Do Schools Have the Capacity to Provide Free Meals to Every Student?

Michah W. Rothbart, Jeehee Han, and Zac Reeves

This brief summarizes the findings from a study using data from New York City (NYC) public schools between 2011-2014 to analyze the effectiveness of UFM and BIC at increasing student school breakfast and lunch participation in capacity-constrained schools.

January 2025 | Download Brief

Behavioral Science-Based “Nudges” Could Increase Physical Activity among Adolescents with ADHD

Hannah Patnaik, Andrew S. London, and Kevin M. Antshel

This brief summarizes findings from a recently completed pilot study testing the efficacy of behavioral interventions aimed at encouraging daily physical activity (i.e., steps measured with an activity tracker) among adolescents with ADHD. Results show that adolescents receiving frequent text reminders and small monetary rewards were more likely to achieve a daily 10,000-step physical activity goal and were more likely to engage in physical activity with their parents.

February 2025 | Download Brief

Hospital Travel Times are Too Long in Rural Puerto Rico

Catherine García

This data slice shows the stark geographic inequities in travel times to the nearest hospitals in Puerto Rico and calls for urgent policy action to address disparities in hospital accessibility.

January 2025 | Download Brief

Don't miss Lerner Center's Population Health Brief Series that presents population health research findings to inform the public and policymakers.

Research Projects

Research by Lerner affiliates is regularly funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and many other federal agencies and foundations. The Lerner Center also funds population health research at Syracuse University through its Faculty Fellows Program.

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Student Opportunities

Are you an undergraduate or graduate student at Syracuse University interested in population and community health? Do you seek a career with meaning and purpose?

The Lerner Center provides distinctive experience that combines traditional and applied training in population health and community health research and engagement to address pressing local, regional and national health problems and reduce health inequities—from academic certificates, to internships, to service learning opportunities and more.

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