A needs assessment to inform the development of a behavioral health careers program for minority high school students

Disparities continue to persist in the health status of ethnic minority populations in the United States (NCHS, 2004). Increasing the number of ethnic minority professionals in the field has been cited as an important approach to address these disparities (IOM, 2004). This includes professions that focus on the psychological and behavioral factors that contribute to health disparities. However, ethnic minority populations are underrepresented at all educational levels in the behavioral sciences (APA, 2002). With this in mind, the goal of Project SMART is to expose ethnic minority high school students to behavioral careers in public health. Phase one involved a needs assessment to guide the development of the Project SMART curriculum. This presentation will review the results of the needs assessment which involved partnerships with community stakeholders including interview responses from eight current health careers pipeline programs geared towards high school students. The presentation will also highlight results from a survey distributed to 96 high school students who were entering a medical careers exposure program. Students listed the type of health related jobs they are interested in pursuing, where they go for career guidance, and their level of interest in a program geared towards behavioral careers in public health. Survey responses also included open-ended responses about what youth need to prepare for their future careers and the content they would like to have included in a pipeline program.