FLINT, MI -- A Flint program aimed at urban youth encourages careers in public health, medicine, and research to diversify the healthcare workforce.
One of the goals of the Flint Public Health Youth Academy is to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities by increasing the number of African American and other minorities in the targeted healthcare fields.
Kent Key, a health disparities researcher and faculty member at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, launched the academy in 2019. He refers to the academy as his strategic initiative that he says emerged from his experience with the Flint Water Crisis.
To diversify the public health workforce, he said early exposure to a range of health fields is essential.
“You know what a police officer looks like,” Key said. “He has a uniform on, right? You know what a firefighter looks like but, really, what does an epidemiologist look like, right? You can’t aspire to be what you’ve never seen or what you don’t know.”
Flint has is 54% Black, 40% white and 4% Hispanic or Latino population, according to recent Census numbers.
But when it comes to representation of minority voices in public health fields, the city lacks diversity in its workforce, said Kent, a Flint native.
He said this mirrors a nationwide trend of underrepresentation of minorities in public health and medical fields.
Looking to change this trend, Key launched the program a year ago. Between the community-based curriculum and local partnerships, the program also looks to elevate youth voices and provide local and peer-to-peer mentorship.
The program is not limited to minority youth even though diversifying the healthcare industry is a key goal.
The other goals are to create an effective pathway to the targeted careers and to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities by increasing the number of African American and other minority public health professionals, medical professionals, and researchers.
Related: Colleges, nonprofit work to increase diversity in health care workforce
Youth have participated in research but also work to recognize how public health is a factor in every piece of society. Recently, the group has held live discussions over policing, the census, the school year amid COVID-19 and even the importance of voting.
The program has evolved to allow Flint youth to develop their own program based on issues that face their communities. Key said they have learned how to write grants.
Last year, there was a collaboration between the program and the city of Flint after former Mayor Karen Weaver received a grant to incorporate public health programming and youth into city research.
This brought six more students into the cohort’s research project. The original group was able to help teach the new participants.
“That’s how we do,” Key said. “As kids matriculate through the academy, they then come in as peer mentors for new cohorts.”
The former students are given grant-funded stipends to help teach future groups.
Asia Donald, 17, is a Freshman at Oakland University in Flint and participated in a Flint Public Health Youth Academy cohort in Fall of 2019.
The cohort Donald was involved in explored the safety and accessibility of public parks in correlation to youth obesity within the city.
The qualitative photo voice project will soon be published with nine students in the cohort named as co-authors. The project asked if parks and recreation spaces in the city are safe for youth to engage in physical activity.
Students mapped out the city into quadrants and took photos to assess the conditions of the recreational spaces.
Related: Flint receives national grant to address childhood obesity
Everything within a community is an issue of public health, Donald said.
“The main point is that the community has to speak up about their issues in order for public health to work for the greater good of everybody,” she said. "There has to be some sort of research within the community that can be used to benefit it rather than making choices based only on the thoughts of policy makers.”
On top of the of discussions featuring young voices, those in the cohort have created a photo billboard project to spread messages important to Flint.
The first group of 24 students were selected to participate in a summer internship with the program partnering with YouthQuest in Flint. The summer program was held at Baker college. Nine of 40 students between two cohorts chose to do a photo research project.
This year, the group is working to provide platform for students to discuss issues facing their community.
Tomás Tello, 17, a junior enrolled at Genesee Early College, started in the Flint Justice League. He now participates in the Flint Public Health Youth Academy’s public forums, which are hosted live on social media.
The group has used the forums to discuss students returning to school, police violence, the Census and the importance of voting.
Seeing the videos shared hundreds of times and viewed thousands of times has shown the community is open to discussion, Tello said. It shows youth can use social media platforms to better connect.
“This has taught me the impact us youth have,” he said.
Public health is a broad issue, he said.
“For example, racism, that’s a public health crisis. It is. People’s lives are at stake, generations of hate, that twisted mentality inside of you. Racism is a mental health issue.”
As part of the Hispanic/Latina community, he said he was affected by the shooting at an El Paso Walmart last year. Mental health is also a public health issue, he added.
Flint youth must be at least age 12 to be considered. Visit the website to learn more about the academy and to fill out an application.
Read more:
Flint families ponder what the water crisis settlement really means for them
Flint schools families can still get free internet access, technology for students
Flint kids learn from grandma, retired teacher at century-old community center
Educators go door-to-door to connect with Flint children missing from virtual class
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Flint program wants to help diversify healthcare workforce by recruiting minority youth - MLive.com
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