Morgan State University’s (MSU) Public Health Program is the final academic institution to join the Public Health Foundation’s (PHF) minority outreach initiative for 2012. Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this initiative seeks to increase access to advanced study and career opportunities in public health for minority populations, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and certain segments of the nation’s Asian/Pacific Islander population.

 

An increased number of minority undergraduate students with awareness about and access to training in public health can effectively contribute to ensuring that the public health workforce is more representative of all populations that comprise communities, especially minority communities with limited access to culturally competent public health programs. To learn more about PHF’s minority outreach initiative, please review the final report of the original pilot study. 
 

In 2008, PHF was awarded a grant from CDC for the development of an outreach plan aimed at motivating minority undergraduate students to pursue a career in public health. PHF utilized TRAIN, the nation’s premier learning management system  for professionals who protect and improve the public’s health, and collaborated with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) – a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) – to pilot a multi-year outreach program specifically designed to increase the number of minority undergraduate students whose awareness of the public health field may lead them into a career in public health. At the request of CDC, PHF is replicating this initiative at other colleges/universities, which include MSU as well as the University of Arizona’s Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and Florida International University’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health. 

 
With roots dating back to its founding as a seminary in 1867, MSU remains one of the strongest African American colleges in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Currently, MSU is one of the leading institutions nationally in the number of applications received from African American high school graduates (2010 enrollment demographics for minority students were: 85.4% African American, 4.8% foreign residency, 2.7% multiracial, and 2.6% Hispanic American). Furthermore, MSU awards more bachelor's degrees to African American students than any campus in Maryland and ranks among the top public campuses nationally in the number of African American graduates receiving doctorates.¹ With such a strong heritage, MSU is an excellent academic institution to replicate PHF’s minority outreach initiative.

 

 

1. Morgan State University Institution Profile. http://www.morgan.edu/About_MSU/At_A_Glance/Institutional_Profile.html. Accessed December 12, 2011.