Abstract
Health Disparities (HD) are community-based, biomedical challenges in need of innovative contributions from Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. Surprisingly, STEM professionals demonstrate a persistent lack of HD awareness and/or engagement in both research and educational activities. This project introduced Health Disparities (HD) as technical challenges to incoming undergraduates in order to elevate engineering awareness of HD. The objective was to advance STEM-based, HD literacy and outreach to young cohorts of engineers. Engineering students were introduced to HD challenges in technical and societal contexts as part of Engineering 101 courses. Findings demonstrate that student comprehension of HD challenges increased via joint study of rising health care costs, engineering ethics and growth of biomedical-related engineering areas.
Highlights
Health Disparities (HD) are preventable differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality and burden of disease on communities targeted by factors such as gender, residence, ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status [1]
This project introduced the concepts of health disparities (HD) to incoming students via the required, introductory course in Engineering
This was executed in two parts: (a) Placing HD and STEM fields in the context of United States (US) health care costs and (b) Using HD data as part of technical engineering training
Summary
Health Disparities (HD) are preventable differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality and burden of disease on communities targeted by factors such as gender, residence, ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status [1]. HD have become contemporary biomedical challenges with adverse and escalating effects in the United States (US) and worldwide. The portion of increased costs attributed to HD has yet to be quantitatively and objectively evaluated, but is certain to rise commensurate with currently-reported levels of HD across different communities [3,4]. The interdisciplinary nature of engineering can help decipher many current and developing HD challenges by leveraging engineering underpinnings to integrate technology with fundamental science, clinical therapies and health outcomes.
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