What is Public Health Anyway?
A room full of 14 high school students acts out a role play about H1N1. Down the hallway, another group watches Kinesiology graduate students demonstrate how to measure energy expenditure as someone runs on a treadmill. What is happening here? The School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) is partnering with the Pioneer Valley Health Careers Opportunity Program (PV-HCOP) to bring high school and community college students to campus in order to educate young people about public health and health science careers. With the goal of increasing the diversity of the health care workforce and assisting students in entering and graduating from health professions programs, PV-HCOP collaborates with partner schools in Springfield, Holyoke, and Greenfield.
Teacher Advocate and SPHHS graduate student, Liz Baldwin, works with PV-HCOP to bring students to campus, introduce them to public health and health science educational opportunities, and present potential public health careers. Since the program’s inception a year and a half ago, more than 45 students from Holyoke and Springfield visited campus. Additional opportunities at Holyoke Community College this fall and spring provided opportunity to educate community college students through a hands-on a training curriculum designed by Ms. Baldwin in Education 649: Training for Non-formal Education.
The goal of PV-HCOP support public health’s priority to address disparities, whether in health outcomes, career opportunities, or education. Research demonstrates that increasing the diversity of health professionals reduces disparities in health outcomes and improves access for patients. This will also provide more culturally competent care, broaden perspectives through which health care professionals address health issues, and enhance the ingenuity of research and intervention development. By creating opportunities for students to experience and consider a variety of health careers, including those in public health, Ms. Baldwin and the PV-HCOP seek to enlarge the exploration of health careers by current middle and high school learners as well as community college students. Public health is a growing field. According to the Association of Schools of Public Health, more than 250,000 public health workers will be needed by 2020. As the opportunities for public health jobs increase, Ms. Baldwin and PV-HCOP offer upcoming students a chance to consider options outside of the clinical health field and hope to simultaneously increase the diversity of future professionals.
April 23, 2010
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