The Fellowship is committed to strengthening and diversifying our public health workforce, and has been able to recruit and retain talented and diverse fellows. Among fellows in the last three graduating cohorts, at least 60% identified as people of color and LGBTQ+, and at least 35% were first generation college students. While we continue to implement new ways to foster inclusion and belonging in our programs and provide models for mentorship and networking, we do see success in retaining fellow alum in the workforce. Since 2017, nearly 80% of graduating fellows continued to work in Wisconsin public health and ~95% of alum continued to work in public health following the completion of their fellowship.

Additionally, the Fellowship is committed to building the capacity of our public health workforce through increasing leadership and health equity readiness for both fellows and their placement sites. Our academic health department partnerships are a key success to the program, and have reported both satisfaction with the program and increased capacity of their organization from the partnership. Fellows go through a curriculum centering collaborative leadership, health equity, and systems thinking. And, the last three graduating cohorts reported the highest growth in the following competencies: increased confidence as public health practitioners; improved leadership; increased skills in collaboration, partnership building, and communication; and enhanced understanding of public health systems.

While the WI Fellowship Program is one small part of workforce development, we are well equipped to pilot novel approaches and consider how our lessons learned can inform larger workforce development initiatives at the state and national level.