​Medical advances and new technologies have provided people with the potential for longer, healthier lives than ever before. However, well-documented health disparities − differences in health outcomes that are closely linked with socioeconomic factors − exist between different populations. Significant health disparities continue to negatively affect the dimensions of health care and public health such as:

• inadequate access to health insurance and primary care physicians;
• underrepresentation within the health care workforce;
• reduced access to healthy lifestyle options (population health);
• inadequate data on race, ethnicity, and language which lowers the likelihood of effective actions to address health disparities.¹
  

To bring the importance of minority health to the nation’s attention, April has been declared National Minority Health Month. This year’s theme, Health Equity Can’t Wait. Act Now in Your CommUNITY!, is a call to action for regional and state minority health consultants, federal, state, and tribal health departments, professional associations, academic institutions and affiliations, faith-based organizations, and state, regional, and national organizations involved and invested in reducing health disparities.² April 2012 also marks the first anniversary of the launch of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities and the National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity. To celebrate this anniversary, attend the Community Townhall in Washington, DC or find an event in your community! With over 90 events occurring during National Minority Health Month, improving minority health is a priority for the nation.

To help research ways to eliminate underrepresentation within the public health workforce, the Public Health Foundation (PHF) was awarded a cooperative agreement from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in 2008. PHF has utilized TRAIN, the nation’s premier learning management system for professionals who protect the public’s health, to design and implement a multi-year outreach program to:

1. Increase the number of minority undergraduate students aware of public health as a field of study and the variance and diversity of career tracts in public health;
2. Provide access to introductory public health training; and
3. Provide public health internship opportunities to facilitate the target population’s pursuit of public health careers.
   

Available 24/7, TRAIN has over 500,000 registered learners and over 25,000 courses (online and on-site) provided by over 4,000 course providers. TRAIN has proven to be an effective mechanism for introducing minority undergraduate students to public health trainings and potential careers in public health. Initially piloted at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in 2009-2010, the initiative has expanded to include Florida International University (FIU), Morgan State University (MSU), and the University of Arizona (UA) in 2012. Preliminary findings of the FAMU pilot, available here, indicate that after taking an introductory course on public health in TRAIN, students’ interest in pursuing a career in public health increased. Thus, utilizing TRAIN’s courses to introduce students to the field of public health has proven to be one such measure that may potentially have an impact on increasing the number minorities who enter a public health career.

Results from FIU, MSU, and UA will be available soon. If you would like more information on PHF’s minority outreach initiative, please contact Dr. Lois Banks at 202-218-2247 or lbanks@phf.org.