Abstract
Latinos lag behind other racial/ethnic groups in pursuit of master’s and doctoral degrees in public health and the health sciences. Éxito! is modeled after the Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research (MTPCCR), which found that Latino participants went on to doctoral programs at a lower rate (12%) than African American (36%) and Asian participants (33%). Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training is designed to increase the number of Latinos who pursue doctoral degrees and careers in cancer health disparity (CHD) research. The program has three components: recruitment with partnering universities and associations, an ethnically tailored intensive 5-day summer institute (SI), and 6-month paid internships offered on a competitive basis. Up to 20 master’s level students/master’s level health professionals are selected annually to participate in the SI; faculty are leaders in Latino CHD research. Funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) from 2011 to 2015, Éxito! recruited 101 summer institute participants and awarded 21 internships. Analyses of pre- and post-institute surveys showed significant increases in confidence to apply to a doctoral program and academic self-efficacy among summer institute participants, and significantly increased research skills among interns. Forty-three percent of Éxito! program alumni applied to a doctoral program (our main outcome) and 29.7% were currently enrolled. This is nearly double the rate for MTPCCR Latino participants (17%) for the corresponding time period. Éxito! is a model pipeline program for encouragement of Latinos on to doctoral programs (e.g., PhD and DrPH) with the potential to increase the pool of cancer health disparity researchers.
Highlights
Cancer has surpassed cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death for Latinos in the USA [1]
There are growing numbers of Latinos at the undergraduate level, they lag behind Whites and other racial/ ethnic groups in pursuit of master’s degrees and doctoral degrees in public health and the health sciences [10, 11]
We assess intermediate impacts that include increased confidence to apply to a doctoral program in the year or within 5 years, increased participants’ confidence that they have the skills to successfully apply to a doctoral program, and increased number of participants who indicate that they will pursue a career in Latino cancer health disparity research
Summary
Cancer has surpassed cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death for Latinos in the USA [1]. Because the literature on educational pipeline diversity reveals that there may be unique challenges that impede pursuit of doctoral-level education by Latinos [15,16,17], and to our knowledge, there are no national pipeline programs for Latinos in public health and social/behavioral research, the Éxito! Is modeled after the successful Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research (MTPCCR) with sites at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and UCLA, which seeks to increase diversity in public health and social/behavioral doctoral programs and cancer disparity research [3, 18, 19]. Is to increase the number of Latinos who pursue doctoral degrees and careers in cancer control research focusing on the causes and solutions to Latino cancer health disparities. We assess intermediate impacts that include increased confidence to apply to a doctoral program in the year or within 5 years, increased participants’ confidence that they have the skills to successfully apply to a doctoral program, and increased number of participants who indicate that they will pursue a career in Latino cancer health disparity research
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