A significant obstacle to the development of a diverse healthcare workforce has been the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students especially those in rural populations. Evidence-based practice has shown educational pipeline programming can foster academic success for minority and underrepresented students (Cabrera, Miner, & Milem, 2013; Katz, Barbosa-Leiker, & Benavides-Vaello, 2016). By connecting underrepresented students to academic and social supports and enhancing academic skills, pipeline programming lays the foundation for future academic success (Cabrera et al., 2013; Katz et al., 2016).
Our team developed the innovative Academic Health Center Pathways Program (AHCPP) with the purpose of increasing diversity in the nursing student body and subsequent workforce. The ACHPP is designed to increase academic opportunity and success of underrepresented students seeking nursing careers through the implementation of interprofessional pipeline programming. The goal of this presentation is to summarize our team’s successful implementation of an evidence-based comprehensive pipeline program that addresses recruitment, retention, and academic success of rural underrepresented nursing students. The significance to global nursing is that pipeline programming is an evidence-based strategy that has been shown to be successful in achieving student success which ultimately can improve health and health equity in culturally diverse, underserved communities.
Methods: Techniques and strategies for implementing comprehensive pipeline programming for underrepresented students were identified through a local needs assessment and an extensive literature review of evidence-based practice (Cabrera, et al., 2013; Katz et al., 2016). The local needs assessment consisted of town hall meetings in target rural communities as well as focus groups conducted with college students from underrepresented backgrounds. The purpose of the community needs assessment was to determine the barriers to underrepresented students from applying to college and pursuing careers in nursing as well as identify resources needed to overcome those barriers. Themes from the town hall meetings and focus groups were identified through content analysis. With the help of an advisory board, four pipeline activities were prioritized based on the themes from the community needs assessment for the ACHPP implementation phase: 1) health professions coaches (HPC); 2) health professions summer camp for middle/junior high school students; 3) health/career fairs; and 4) a summer bridge program for entering college freshman. Pipeline activities were evaluated via an investigator developed survey with content validity of four experts.
Results: A result from this pipeline programming was the placement of HPCs in four rural schools. The HPCs worked directly with 82 students on the development of health profession clubs and community outreach projects relating to topics of the students’ interests: obesity, physical activity, and vision/hearing testing. Additionally, two hundred and five 7th-12th grade students from rural counties attended the health career fair. Over two-fifths of these students, 41%, stated the health career fair had increased their knowledge about college and close to one-fourth (23%) reported the fair had increased program specific knowledge. Four local county health fairs resulted in 1,551 rural youth age 3-18 receiving outreach programming and health assessments. A two-day health professions camp engaged twenty 7th-9th grade students from rural URE backgrounds in learning about health profession careers. After the camp, 82% of participants reported that the camp made them more excited to attend college. Lastly, successful completion of a 6-week residential summer bridge program was achieved by seven incoming freshman from rural URE backgrounds with interests in health profession careers.
Conclusion: Significant obstacles exist for minority and underrepresented students in pursuing a health professions career. AHCPP was developed to provide underrepresented students’ knowledge and resources to overcome these obstacles. Ultimately, this pipeline programming resulted in an increased awareness and exposure to health professions careers for underrepresented students. Through this presentation we will demonstrate the successful translation of evidence on pipeline programming into practice.