Assessment and Impact of a Summer Environmental Justice and Health Enrichment Program: A Model for Pipeline Development

Abstract

The need for more enrichment programs for underrepresented groups in the health sciences particularly the environmental health sciences is considerable. The implications of chronic racial/ethnic differences in scientific training are best illustrated by the disproportionate number of health professionals from underrepresented groups. For example, African Americans comprise 13% of the total U.S. population but only account for 4% of U.S. physicians and in 2006, only 7.2% of all bachelor's degrees and 8.6% of all master's degrees awarded to African American were in the health sciences field. In an effort to increase the representation of persons of color in the health sciences, we used our existing community university partnership between the Low Country Alliance for Model Communities, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Maryland-College Park as the basis for a summer enrichment pilot project. The major aim was to provide academic experiences for underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students in the environmental health sciences, specifically on how to perform scientific research in environmental health sciences, learn about environmental justice and public health issues, and work closely with environmental health researchers on community-based participatory research projects. We set out to evaluate the process and feasibility of the pilot and several themes emerged from our qualitative inquiry that included: 1) need for strengthening research skills at the collegiate level; 2) lack of knowledge of environmental justice and environmental health issues; 3) need for practical experiences within the community; and 4) expansion of the project beyond the summer.