Empowering High Schoolers to Pursue Public Health Research in Mansfield, Ohio

Students from Mansfield Senior High School will be guided by 131s and librarians to create original public health research projects over the course of the 2020-2021 school year. They will attend 4 workshops on how to research a local public health topic based on the current issues in the community. Participating students will end the school year by presenting a poster and oral presentation to community stakeholders including the Health Commissioner, County Commissioners, Directors of various local health and social service agencies, local business owners and community organizers. Based on a review of relevant programs attempted around the US in the past decade, this kind of program has the potential to increase public health awareness in both the student and general population, as well as increasing college preparedness and community buy-in among participants see citations below. Intended outcomes include empowering students to set the agenda of their local health department e.g., program planning, advocacy, data collection methods, stimulating grant proposals, and motivating students to return to Richland County after college to work on public health issues in the area. Citation 1: DAgostino, Emily. "Public Health Education: Teaching Epidemiology in High School Classrooms." American Journal of Public Health 108, no. 3 2018: 324-28. Accessed July 25, 2019. doi:10.2105/ajph.2017.304216. Citation 2: George, Diane Marie M. St., Margarita Chukhina, and Mark A. Kaelin. "Training Teachers to Teach Epidemiology in Middle and High Schools." 94 Quarterly of Community Health Education 38, no. 1 2017: 65-69. Accessed July 25, 2019. doi:10.1177/0272684x17749564.