Goals

Developing our biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce is a critical national need. Significant workforce shortages exist or are emerging in the fields of medicine, dentistry, public health, nutrition/dietetics, and mental health. Exacerbating this problem is the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in health research and the health professions, as well as underrepresentation of women in the highest echelons of health research. Because a diverse biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce would be significantly better equipped to serve the nation’s health needs, it is imperative for all students to learn about the exciting careers in the field of health sciences.

Adolescence offers a key window to promote interest in and increase self-efficacy to pursue health research careers and the health professions, to address the gender gap in the health sciences, and to introduce underrepresented minorities to opportunities in health and science research.

The Health Quest Project aims to promote middle school students’ interests in health science careers by:

• Allowing students to learn about the career paths of health professionals through interactive video interviews. Specifically, students will learn firsthand how professionals in biomedical, behavioral and clinical research fields became interested in their career fields and how they prepared for them while also getting to explore some of the day-to-day activities of these scientists.

• Engaging students in a rich narrative driven health sciences adventure game where students can choose which science field to explore and then embark on a mission to help solve a scientific problem or answer a critical research question.

• Providing classroom teachers with the tools and resources they need to implement Health Quest in their classrooms.

Support

This project is primarily supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Award Number R25OD021880-01A1. Additional support was provided by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), under cooperative agreement UA6MC27378 & T71MC00003. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.