Public Health Scholarship Program

Kentucky leads the nation in many common and preventable causes of death and health behaviors contributing to disease. According to the 2021 America''s Health Rankings, Kentucky ranks 47th in the nation overall in health outcomes, further signifying the need for a competent and diverse workforce. Kentucky is investing in our workforce to ensure that our staff are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to prevent, prepare for, and respond to recovery activities related to COVID–19 and other public health emergencies, as well as skills related to the social determinants of health that many Kentucky communities face that contribute to poor health outcomes. These upstream factors, such as extreme poverty, environmental racism, and adverse childhood experiences present unique challenges for our public health workforce and were evident in COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many lessons and we are eager to collaborate with our current and future workforce through this Public Health Scholarship Program to tackle these challenges head-on and create more public health champions. Through this proposed Public Health Scholarship Program (PHSP) funding opportunity, we will use a collaborative model and include three higher education, accredited institutions within the Commonwealth of Kentucky – University of Kentucky (UK), Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), and the University of Louisville (UofL). Each institution serves a different geographic area within the state and provides a wide variety of public health expertise and degree program offerings for a diverse population. The projected number of trainees to be awarded scholarships in year 1 is 59, year 2 is 88, and year 3 is 88, for a total of 235 during the entire project year. We will partner with the Kentucky Department for Public Health, Kentucky Health Department Association, Kentucky Public Health Association, and other public health system partners to create a pipeline for public health students, both currently in the workforce and those in school who are the future public health champions. Our approach is three-pronged and is targeted to both existing students looking to enter the workforce, as well as those currently in the workforce looking to further their skills and increase capacity: 1. Enhance the knowledge and skills of the public health workforce by developing or strengthening community partnerships and linkages to identify employment needs, and training opportunities, and to facilitate scholarship recipients'' employment post-training completion in state or local governments, including state, local, territorial or tribal public health departments, and other public health-related organizations. 2. Educate the public health workforce to address public health inequities and health disparities and incorporate principles of social determinants of health (SDOH) into practice. 3. Educate the public health workforce to prevent, prepare for, and respond to recovery activities related to COVID–19, as well as other public health emergencies, by providing public health field experience (practicum) opportunities.