From High School to Health Care: Lab and Data Science Pathways for Success

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The CoVID-19 pandemic amplified the stress of existing critical shortages of allied health professionals, especially in rural communities and underserved populations. Careers including clinical laboratory sciences (CLS) and public health information technology (PHIT) are less well promoted as other health professions in K-12 schools, increasing the struggle for professional programs to recruit undergraduate students. Critical needs exist for novel educational programs and training methods that promote and increase interest amongst high students about CLS and PHIT fields. The High School 2 Health Care (HS2HC) program is comprised of a summer program and a dual enrollment course that educates high school students and their teachers about careers in CLS and PHIT, while guiding them in developing hands-on skills that give them the opportunity to experience what these careers would entail. HS2HC aligns with the NIH Research Education Program goal of increasing the number of qualified, trained health professionals to meet the nation’s needs. Our program targets rural communities in West Tennessee where professional health care shortages have been exceptionally damaging and seeks to enhance opportunities in CLS and PHIT for underserved student populations. We will use novel outcomes-based educational approaches that apply project-based learning strategies to real-world social determinants of health scenarios and work-based simulation strategies with real clinical data and samples. A teacher professional development program focused on integration of NGSS and CLS and PHIT content, along with career awareness will also be implemented. A quasi-experimental mixed methods design will be used to assess awareness and knowledge and skills development in CLS and PHIT focus groups, quantitative content analysis from a dual enrollment course and a summer program, and teacher and student interviews will be used to assess effectiveness of the outcomes-based curricular design approach we use to teach interdisciplinary PHIT and CLS content, understand how rural high school students acquire knowledge regarding PHIT and CLS professions using our learning approach, and whether our approach increases student interest and the number of students choosing Career and Technical Education (CTE) and undergraduate pathways in these careers. Our unique population compositions in Lauderdale and McNairy Counties in West Tennessee will provide insight into the impact of cultural and social differences in learning acquisition for CLS and PHIT concepts, thereby allowing us to uniquely tailor our experiences to different community and cultural settings. Through high school and community partnerships, online, and mobile resources we will disseminate educational curricula, materials, and research outcomes to enhance community health-based literacy. We will encourage the addition of our program into the NGSS and CTE standards for Tennessee by communication with educators and policy makers.