Project SCORE (Student Centered Outcomes Research Experience)

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PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT Project SCORE Systemic inequities in access to healthcare and quality educational opportunity for the youth of Mississippi (MS) are powerful forces that disengage students from entering pathways toward STEM careers. Project SCORE (Student Centered Outcomes Research Experience) proposes to engage students from groups underrepresented in STEM career trajectories through a youth participatory action research (YPAR) approach, capturing and retaining their attention through the immediacy of health threats such as COVID-19. Guided by a YPAR approach, Project SCORE will leverage a near-peer mentor model to engage and support underrepresented students in an exploration of the field of public health. Project SCORE will bring together underrepresented high school and graduate health sciences students from two communities with significant health disparities in a year-long weekly afterschool program to develop relevant health behavior research questions, provide training in research methods, and facilitate the development of student-conducted research projects mentored by near-peer graduate health sciences students and faculty. A student-centered research agenda will be developed to support future research initiatives. Students will complete their experience with a week-long on campus immersion experience. This project seeks to increase awareness of and interest in public health, science engagement, and STEM careers, as well as increase matriculation into higher education STEM programs to enhance and diversify the future biomedical workforce.