Our Mission, Vision, & Values

Mission: To uplift NYC communities, empower individuals, and improve health outcomes through accessible and comprehensive health education.

Vision: We envision a future where sustainable and equitable platforms for community-informed knowledge sharing are commonplace.

Values: CIPHER celebrates diversity of thought and strives for community-driven health equity action.

The following 5 aims reflect our commitment to the communities we serve and our priorities as an organization.

  1. Increase the accessibility of public health information in response to knowledge and resource gaps

  2. Develop public health curricula grounded in health equity and informed by community voices

  3. Strengthen relationships between Columbia University MSPH and NYC communities

  4. Engage MSPH students in community-driven efforts and volunteer opportunities

  5. Support community-based organizations to promote community health

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Unlock Public Health

The Citizens’ Public Health Literacy (CIPHER) project aims to decode public health concepts through community-informed curriculum, health messaging, and the provision of support to community organizations. Our work introduces lay audiences to public health concepts and teaches them to unlock their full health potential as we make knowledge and resources, that are far too often limited to institutions of higher learning, free and accessible.

Here at CIPHER, we seek to dismantle the barriers that institutions of knowledge built with prestige and reputation that can intimidate or alienate a broader audience. We envision a future where sustainable and equitable platforms for community-informed knowledge sharing are commonplace and CIPHER can be a small part of making that dream a reality. Through our multidisciplinary teams comprised of talented graduate students and faculty advisors we believe we can utilize evidence based methods to make learning more equitable and accessible.

Though COVID-19 has undoubtedly revealed the challenges that are faced in our communities everyday, we believe that we can be a part of a collective recovery. CIPHER will work together with communities to help strengthen their many assets and seek to identify and create solutions for their needs. Together we can build a future where equity is less of a dream and more of a reality.

CIPHER’s Origin Story

Citizens’ Public Health Literacy began as an idea in Dr. Kim Hopper’s Social and Economic Determinants of health course at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. It was mid-march and the coronavirus pandemic had just shut down the entire city and we had quickly transitioned to remote learning. As COVID-19 began to tear through New York City and we watched the death toll rise we also saw a number of other things occur. We began to see the virus impact families and neighborhoods on familiar socioeconomic fault lines and those who were among the poorest and most vulnerable even before the pandemic were simultaneously being considered essential and not receiving any additional compensation. We saw spotty and inconsistent public health messages coming from both local and national sources about masks, mode of transmission, and mortality risk. As the pandemic unfolded, we watched family, friends, and our communities struggle with what to do and how to sift through all of the different messages that were being propagated. As information and misinformation spread through social networks, news, and government sources we saw a significant need to assist in making this information more accessible to the public and to assist in tailoring it to the communities where it was being disseminated.

                  It became clear amid all of these challenges that we could help serve a function in helping to equip lay audiences to better understand the public health concepts and basic science information that has been disseminated. Therefore, we set out to create an organization whose aim was to share the knowledge that we have in these areas with the general public. As I wrote in the mission statement for CIPHER our project aims to decode public health concepts through community-informed curriculum, health messaging, and the provision of support to community organizations. Our work introduces lay audiences to public health concepts and teaches them to unlock their full health potential as we make knowledge and resources, that are far too often limited to institutions of higher learning, free and accessible. We believe that it is necessary to make this information more accessible and that you shouldn’t need a master’s degree in public health to be able to understand what is happening around you and why decisions are being made by officials. This time has revealed just how fragile our entire ecosystem of living is and can be and we want to be a part of building back a better stronger and more resilient society.

                  This moment presents an opportunity to significantly address the systemic inequities that have been unveiled and exacerbated by this pandemic and we must act. Now is the time to rethink the way we approach problems and how we can innovatively address them. CIPHER was founded now because we feel that we can participate in reimagining what our society and future can look like, and utilizing our skills and working closely with the communities that have been most impacted we can work towards changing these realities. That is why CIPHER was established now and we feel that together as an organization and working with these communities we can truly build a future where equity is less of a dream and is truly more of a reality in our communities, this country, and the world.

Kayleigh Barrett & Peter Scheerer

Co-Founders of CIPHER