Black Students and Professionals in Health Education.

Overview & Synopsis

A recent survey solicited information from the health education departments of 146 colleges and universities to obtain an estimation of the number of blacks pursuing graduate study in health education as well as the number of black health education professionals serving on the faculty on predominantly white campuses. A second focus of the study was to identify successful and perhaps assertive techniques utilized by health educators in recruiting black students and black professionals to white campuses. The findings revealed a severe shortage of black students seeking graduate degrees, and a low percentage of black health education professionals on college faculties. Recruitment efforts appeared to be insufficient. It is concluded that the task of enlarging the ranks of the health education professoriate with blacks will not be accomplished from the small pool of doctoral graduates currently being produced. Also, present efforts designed to identify and attract existing black academics to health education will not significantly alleviate the shortage. Ways in which to attract more graduate students to the field are discussed. (JD)