Summer programs at Pitt Public Health introduce younger generations to the field of public health
"Dear Sam, I am trying not to cry as I write this,” began high school student Layla Johnson’s handwritten note to her mentor, Samantha Totoni, PhD, MPH, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH) at Pitt’s School of Public Health. Johnson was thanking Totoni for the month they worked together in the Public Health Science Academy, a summer program that matches teenagers from Pittsburgh-area high schools with faculty to introduce them to public health and other scientific fields.
Johnson, who will be entering her senior year at Pittsburgh CAPA this fall, was especially grateful to Totoni for “…listening to my many stories and experiences as we walked around campus and talked about the future" while they measured outdoor particle pollution for her project.
At a symposium held at the school on July 21, Johnson and eight other Academy graduates presented their research projects to an audience of family members, mentors and educators. A Braddock resident, Johnson chose to address air pollution and preterm birth, particularly related to health disparities, as her project. She shared Criseena’s story, a Black woman in Pittsburgh whose first child was born at 26 weeks and weighed only 1 pound and 11 ounces. After playing a recorded interview she conducted with Criseena, Johnson revealed, “I was that baby.”
Working closely with faculty mentors at the School of Public Health, Academy students from high schools across the city presented on a range of public health topics—the effects of climate change on kidney disease and antibiotic resistance, the spread of misinformation about nicotine and tobacco on Twitter, environmental factors and brain aging, and genetic and social contributors to complex diseases.
Only a day before the Academy research symposium took place, the Commons area of the Public Health Building was crowded with another group of young scholars focused on public health—this time, undergraduate students eager to show off posters explaining the research they had done as part of their internships through the Public Health Undergraduate Scholars Program.
The event was the culmination of an eight-week summer program designed to advance health equity by increasing diversity in the public health workforce. A highlight for the 38 students participating—six of whom are Pitt undergraduates—was traveling to Atlanta to present their research at a poster showcase at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Funded by the Office of Health Equity at the CDC as part of the John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program, the program aims to encourage historically underserved college students to consider careers in public health.
Hannah Covert, PhD, research assistant professor in EOH, who manages the internship program, said students focused on maternal and child health, environmental justice, and climate and health and had faculty mentors from the School of Public Health or UPMC. In September, Covert said, one of the participants will be chosen to receive the Williams-Hutchins Health Equity Award recognizing exceptional student projects that advance health disparity science and minority health.
Yaa Kornne, a rising junior at Pitt majoring in rehabilitation science, said the program helped her understand public health as “a holistic approach to looking at things.” Through her internship in community sports in Homewood, she learned that the benefits of sports are not only for physical health but also for “the social and emotional health of the youth.”
And she learned that public health requires data collection to quantify what is being studied. “We need numbers,” she said.
- Clare Collins and Roberta Zeff
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The Public Health Science Academy, launched in Summer 2022, was founded by Dean Maureen Lichtveld, and co-directed by Hannah Covert, Toni Deslouches and Beth Hoffman, with funding from The Grable Foundation and Debra Cen. Academy mentors included Hannah Covert, Toni Deslouches, Y. Peter Di, Eleanor Feingold, Nicholas Fitz, Wenndy Hernandez, Beth Hoffman, Maureen Lichtveld, Alison Sanders, Jaime Sidani, Samantha Totoni and Zachary Zimmerman.
The Public Health Undergraduate Scholars Program was implemented at the School of Public Health by a team that included Jeanine Buchanich, Jessica Burke, Hannah Covert, Rob Gresser, Ashley Hill, Darae Johnson, Mara Koperwas, Maureen Lichtveld, Tina Ndoh, Jonette Suiter, Sam Totoni, Terri Washington and Ada Youk.