Teachers' Perceptions of Using Health Disparities Content to Engage High Schoolers in Urban Communities

The objective of this study was to report on teachers’ perceptions of using health disparities content to engage high school students in urban communities over the course of a summer health disparities professional development (PD) program. Teachers participated in a three-week, 80-hour summer PD, where they received content on health disparities, met with health disparities researchers, and developed project-based learning units focused on health disparities. To under-stand teachers’ perceptions of integrating health disparities content in the classroom, thematic coding was used to analyze data from focus groups collected before and after summer PD for three cohorts of high school teachers in two urban school districts (2016-2018, N=22 teachers). Findings were that: 1) Teachers showed awareness of the social challenges students face, even prior to starting a summer PD on health disparities; 2) Teachers appreciated the role of community engagement and student activism as a solution to health disparities and felt that they would be able to engage students with this material; 3) Teachers needed resources, mostly in the form of community connections, to fully integrate health disparities lessons, with community engagement infused throughout. Findings suggest that teachers are prepared to integrate information about community context in their classes and could be furthered empowered to teach about health disparities with the right community connections and engagement infrastructure.