Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #114894

Sara L. Cole, PhD, Department of Health Sciences, Illinois State University, Campus Box 5220, Normal, IL 61790-5220, 309-438-5957, slcole@ilstu.edu and Michael Reece, PhD, MPH, Department of Applied Health Science, Indiana University, HPER Building 116, 1025 E. Seventh Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7109.

Objectives: Little is known about the preparedness of health education students in addressing health issues among racial and ethnic minorities and women. Less is known about the extent these students' attitudes toward individual communities and specific health issues are associated with their comfort and interest in working with specific health issues or their comfort in working with specific populations. An understanding of these relationships will help to prepare the future workforce. Methods: Data collected from 274 health education students were analyzed to explore relationships among health education students' attitudes, comfort, and interests. Results: The sample primarily consisted of Caucasian (84%), undergraduate (64.3%) women (88.6%). General racial attitudes and affective racial attitudes were significantly related to interest in minority health (r=.499, p=.000; r=.413, p=.000, respectively), while sexism scores were significantly related to interest in working in gay and lesbian health (r=.406, p=.000). However, many students were "very uninterested" working in minority health and/or gay and lesbian health (20.1%, 36.7%, respectively). Conclusions: This primarily white female sample appeared to be most interested and comfortable in working with health issues that were reflective of their personal experiences, and they appeared to be most comfortable with individuals most like themselves. Thus, the future work force may not be prepared to work with culturally diverse communities as outlined in Healthy People 2010. This need in educating the future workforce is a further challenge in eliminating health disparities.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to describe the relationships among health education students' attitudes towards racism and sexism and their (a) comfort in working with specific populations; (b) comfort in working with specific health issues; and (c) interest in working with specific health issues.
• Participants will be able to describe possible solutions for better preparing health education students to work with culturally diverse communities.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.