Students Gain Insight, Experience Through Health Disparities Class, Conference
April, 2009
Christopher Spencer's career plans became clearer in the midst of taking a course about minority health disparities offered in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas.
"I'm graduating in the fall, and I'm thinking of going into public health," Spencer said recently as he sat in Ozark Hall waiting for the class to begin. "I'm interested in studying epidemiology at UAMS (the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) or something at the Clinton School of Public Policy. This class had a big influence on me."
Spencer was one of seven students in the class who made poster presentations at the 2009 Arkansas Health Disparities Conference on April 3 in Springdale. The College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas and Arkansas Migrant Education sponsored the conference. The nursing school is part of the College of Education and Health Professions.
The conference provided the ideal capstone experience for the course. Kathleen Barta, associate professor of nursing, designed the three-hour course with the students meeting for two hours once a week on the Fayetteville campus and the remaining one hour's credit coming from service learning. She told the students their final grade would come in large part from an advocacy paper they would write based on the service learning component and that they would be required to make a presentation at the health disparities conference.
The course itself was out of the ordinary. In 2007, Barta received a special grant from the university's Office of Institutional Diversity and Education based on her proposal for the course. Students from several majors, including nursing, biological sciences and social work, enrolled in the course this spring.
The health disparities conference is in its third year. It draws educators and health practitioners from across the state who are interested in promoting health equity. This year's conference focused on health disparities in children, the elderly, women and minorities.
According to the federal Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act, a health disparity population exists "if there is a significant disparity in the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality or survival rates in the population as compared to the health status of the general population."
Judith Tavano directs the Professional Development Academy in the College of Education and Health Professions. She organized the conference with Deanna Perez Williams of Arkansas Migrant Education.
The keynote speaker was James Kaput, director of the Division of Personalized Nutrition and Medicine in the Food and Drug Administration's National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Ark. He spoke about developing community-based research strategies to analyze genetic and environmental interactions that contribute to health disparities. His model emphasizes involvement of community stakeholders throughout the research process.
Other speakers representing universities and health agencies addressed such topics as elder health, diabetes prevention and tobacco use within the Latino community.
"We purposefully built networking time into the conference schedule so that participants could get to know each other and see where their interests and professional goals coincide, in the hope that they would find opportunities for collaboration," Tavano said. "In their evaluations, several participants said they appreciated that aspect of the conference, and speakers mentioned the longer sessions were helpful in allowing them to delve deeply into a topic. Some conferences give speakers 20 minutes, which is not very long to convey meaningful information."
One possible collaboration hinges on a grant proposal pending from the College of Education and Health Professions and the Minority Initiative Sub Recipient Grant Office at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. This office helped fund the health disparities conference, and the grant proposal, if funded, would pay for the development of culturally competent messages about the health risks associated with tobacco use among Hispanic and Marshallese communities in Washington and Benton counties.
In yet another example of synergy in evidence at the conference, it was the Marshallese population that five of Barta's students concentrated on for their service learning experience. The largest and fastest growing immigrant Marshallese population in the country lives in northwest Arkansas.
The students volunteered at a clinic and conducted a chart review.
"We found concrete evidence of health disparities among the Marshallese population," Spencer explained.
The students found high rates of diabetes as compared to the general population. They also compiled data on immunization records, entry to prenatal care, hypertension and body mass index.
"The chart review was something the clinic needed to have done," Barta said. "The students learned a very important aspect of service. They didn't go in and say, 'Here's what we want to do.' Instead, they said, 'How can we help you?' The data they collected will be used as part of a needs assessment by the clinic."
Although Barta suggested possible settings for the service learning, the students themselves were required to make contacts and arrangements. Two students, Chelsea Smith and Shara Sutphen, provided nutritional analysis for schools and a homeless shelter.
At the health disparities conference, the students found themselves interacting with professionals on an equal footing.
"I was surprised that health professionals were asking me, an undergraduate, questions," said Kelly Taylor. "People were interested in what we were saying. They wanted to know about sample size and looked through the packets of basic health information I designed as part of my advocacy plan."
Taylor was encouraged to contact community groups that might be interested in distributing the information packet.
Roberto Correa gathered the BMI data. He said he felt prepared for the conference presentation, if a bit nervous.
"They asked data questions, about the numbers, the statistics," he recalled.
The other students who worked at the clinic were Janna Richard and Shanequa Averette. Averette is a graduate student in the Master of Science in Nursing program.
The conference gave the students a wider audience than faculty members who usually evaluate their work, Barta said.
"That helped to motivate them and improve the quality of their work," she said. "It also provided a local emphasis to the information they were learning in their textbook. The service learning put a local face on the issues, and the conference allowed them to meet providers of health care and other services for vulnerable populations."
The conference was more than simple dissemination of information, Spencer said.
"It was a call to action," he said. "These were people with the power to influence the situation."
Spencer also described the advocacy paper required of the nursing students as a call to action.
"We had to take what we had learned and describe the gaps in services, areas of need," he said. "I discussed the need for cultural competency, that people who work with the Marshallese need to understand their culture. Different cultures have different ideas of what health is. The Marshallese community is very tightly knit, and a service provider needs to be able to bridge the gap between the community and the medical organization."
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Contact:
Heidi Stambuck, director of communications
College of Education and Health Professions
479-575-3138, stambuck@uark.edu