BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
Cultivating intention to pursue health-related studies among a 1 pilot group of high schoolers: establishing a baseline data
Provisionally accepted
- 1The City University of New York, New York, United States
- 2Lehman College, New York, United States
- 3Hunter College, New York, United States
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This brief research report presents pilot baseline data that will serve as the foundation for developing a high school intervention to engage students in health studies and careers with a health disparities perspective. The overarching goal is to increase the number of Bronx high school students pursuing studies in the health sciences. Approximately 75% of the 2025 graduating class participated in this pilot study. Students were assessed on their knowledge of the following health disparities topics (sleep health, STDs and HIV, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), adolescent mental health, and community health and health disparities); their career interests in the health professions, and attitudes. Overall, most students were Hispanic females aged 17 to 18. Students' responses suggest close to 80% will pursue a health career, and almost 65% expect to take health courses in college. On the other hand, 30% to 35% reported an unenthusiastic attitude toward science, and more than 42% of students were unclear about their skills. The empirical results indicate that students have strong attitudes and intentions towards health careers, exhibit significant insecurity regarding their scientific competencies, and reveal important gaps in knowledge in the 5 health topics assessed. These knowledge gaps may be an opportunity for the project to foster students’ interest in each health topic and even motivate their research interest in health disparities in the Bronx.
Keywords: Bronx, health careers, Health Disparities, high school, stem, training
Received: 05 Nov 2025; Accepted: 16 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Roldos and Aponte. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Maria-Isabel Roldos
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