Creating Pipelines for Tomorrow’s Public Health Leaders

For Dr. Charles Branas, realizing that community college students could help fill the need for public health professionals from underserved communities was a light-bulb moment. Connecting with Dr. Daisy Cocco De Filippis, President of Hostos Community College in the South Bronx, made the idea seem workable.

But there was something missing: a bridge to connect qualified Hostos students to the Mailman School of Public Health, where Dr. Branas chairs the Department of Epidemiology.

Columbia University School of General Studies turned out to be the perfect bridge. With its ability to welcome nontraditional students, GS became “the very center” of the NextGen Public Health Scholars Program, Dr. Branas said.

A 2+2+2 scholarship program, NextGen identifies exceptional students in their first year at Hostos, mentors them through the completion of their associate degrees, enrolls them in GS to complete Columbia University bachelor’s degrees, and finally brings them to the Mailman School of Public Health, where they can study epidemiology or another public health specialty and become the type of leaders the field needs most.

The first cohort of this innovative public/private partnership started at Columbia in the fall of 2023, and to say that the program has succeeded in identifying untapped talent is an understatement.

Hawa Abraham, 37, a mother of three children under age 14, attended Hostos while also serving as a full-time community health worker at Montefiore Medical Center. She helped low-income Montefiore patients navigate the medical system and identified social contributors to health problems. She also authored a literature review on food insecurity in the South Bronx for the hospital. A native of Sierra Leone, Hawa lived as a refugee in Guinea for five years before starting a nursing degree in Liberia, then immigrating to the United States with her husband.

Hawa was excited to move to the U.S., where she hoped to complete her education and begin combatting the type of suffering she’d seen growing up as a refugee—and that she would continue to see in her new community. But without residency, she ran into trouble with both enrollment and funding, and reluctantly put her education on hold for years before enrolling at Hostos.

Andrea de los Angeles Vasquez Guillen, 26, and her sister Maria Jesus Vasquez Guillen, 27, had already collaboratively published two papers in scientific journals in Venezuela and Ecuador on complications of Covid-19. They had studied medicine in their home country of Venezuela before social unrest and violence, often right on their campus, forced them to emigrate. Andrea recalls taking a final exam while police battled an anti-government group outside the classroom.

“It was like taking a test in the middle of a war,” she recalled.

While attending Hostos, both sisters conducted research with the American Heart Association (AHA), Andrea working at a New York University lab and Maria at Brooklyn’s State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. Based on her work, Andrea co-authored a paper on cardiovascular complications of Covid-19, published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, and Maria collaborated on a poster presented at the AHA Scientific Sessions conference.

Although the sisters started out in Hostos’ nursing program, they were thrilled to change direction through the NextGen program, since public health and epidemiology have always been part of their long-term goals.

All three members of the first cohort would be exemplary candidates for the Mailman School of Public Health without the NextGen program, Dr. Branas said.

But, he added, “Without this program, we never would have connected with these folks. This is a great opportunity for these students, but it’s also a great opportunity for us as a public health community.”

All three members of the first cohort would be exemplary candidates for the Mailman School of Public Health without the NextGen program, Dr. Branas said.

But, he added, “Without this program, we never would have connected with these folks. This is a great opportunity for these students, but it’s also a great opportunity for us as a public health community.”

Covid Exposed Shortcomings

While the need for more representation from underserved communities has long been recognized in public health, the pandemic threw that need into stark perspective and helped inspire the NextGen program.

Although Covid hit the Bronx and other diverse neighborhoods of New York hard, healthcare workers struggled to bring neighbors into vaccination sites. “Part of the concern was that there weren’t enough folks from the local community who were epidemiologists—or care providers at those local sites,” Dr. Branas said.

As Dr. Branas contemplated this problem at Mailman, across the Harlem River, leaders at Hostos were studying the same issue. “Through the pandemic, communities of color were disproportionately impacted in terms of rates of mortality, of not having access to information, and of being subject to misinformation—for example, being afraid of getting vaccinated,” said Dr. Sofia Oviedo, Research Programs Director at Hostos. “The best way to share the needed information is to make the communities feel that they can trust you, and to make treatments and prevention measures available in a culturally responsive way. That is why it’s critical to have professionals of diverse backgrounds meet
the needs of our communities of color.”

With strong healthcare programs and a student body of diverse backgrounds and life experiences, Hostos could fill that need. And facilitating transfer opportunities to bachelor’s and graduate programs is one of Hostos’s core goals, making the NextGen program an ideal partnership.

The applicants, too, were influenced by what they saw during the pandemic.

As Hawa saw Covid rake through her neighborhood, she drew upon her nursing training, exhorting neighbors to take precautions. Then, as pandemic restrictions squeezed incomes, she noticed longer lines at food pantries, bringing her back to her refugee days. “I’ve been in that position. I would stand in line for food. So, when Covid came, it was like a replay.”

All this inspired Hawa to shift her educational goals, beginning with Hostos as a community health major and then applying to the NextGen program.

Funding the Opportunity

Working together, Hostos, GS, and Mailman have assembled a patchwork of funding to ensure that the first two cohorts will be able to complete their six-year journey with full tuition coverage, as well as stipends and free monthly MetroCards. Hostos drew on a small portion of a grant the school received from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, as well as a congressional earmark, while Mailman used grant funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

However, the program will need ongoing funding to continue bringing at least two qualified Hostos students to Columbia each year, Dr. Branas said.

Columbia GS Makes the Connection

GS has plenty of experience as a pathway for community college students to thrive at Columbia. One thing that’s exciting and different about NextGen is the opportunity to work with the incoming students before they arrive at Columbia, said GS Director of Admissions Matthew Rotstein.

One of GS’s strengths is its dedicated advising staff, who are well versed in challenges unique to nontraditional students. GS advisors are able to help Hostos’s NextGen students select their second-year courses to best prepare them for GS and Mailman.

For example, Rotstein said, knowing that a student may study epidemiology at Mailman, the advisor might encourage them to take calculus in their second year at Hostos. Advisors can also help students maximize transfer credits to Columbia.

Now at Columbia, all three members of the first cohort appreciate GS’s University Studies course, where they are learning about the vast array of resources available on campus.

For her part, Andrea also appreciates the social connections she has made in GS. “One of the things I like the most about GS is getting to know people in a similar situation,” she said. “Knowing that you are not alone in this University that can be overwhelming is very helpful—and it makes you feel like you belong to this place, too.”