Promoting public health careers in a diverse undergraduate student population

A large percentage of the existing public health workforce is eligible to retire within the next five years. There is concern among public health professionals that a competent future workforce may be jeopardized due to an insufficient number of qualified people who are aware of and interested in public health careers. This is particularly true for those from diverse and underrepresented populations. In 2012, the California-Nevada Public Health Training Center offered three different events at universities in Southern California targeting undergraduate students in order to provide information to undergraduate students about public health careers and graduate education opportunities in public health. Almost two-thirds of the participants reported being from ethnic minority or underrepresented populations, and one-third of the students indicated prior to the event that they were unlikely to apply to a graduate program in public health. This presentation provides detailed information about the undergraduate student events, including advertising approaches, how participants were recruited, demographic information, the specific topics of individual sessions and types of community professionals involved, changes in participants' knowledge of different disciplines in public health and educational opportunities for graduate study, and their interest in a public health career. Information from a long-term followup survey will also be reported to identify the number of graduating students participating in these events who applied for graduate study in public health or obtained employment in some public health field. Opportunities for other academic programs to provide similar student outreach events will be explored.