The Pathways Academy, with Adam Graczyk and Sidney McFoy

Co-Host Jessica Kruger of the University at Buffalo School of Health Public Health and Health Professions speaks with Adam Graczyk and Sidney McFoy about the Pathways Academy in Buffalo. This program introduces  underrepresented minoritized high school students from Buffalo to Public Health through hands-on experiences, campus tours and more.

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Hello and welcome to Buffalo Health Cast a podcast by students, faculty and staff of the university at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions, we are your co-host, Tia Palermo, Jessica Kruger, Schuyler Lawson. And in this podcast, we cover topics related to health equity here in Buffalo, around the US and globally. And the first semester of the podcast, we're taking a deeper look at racism and health. We'll be talking to experts around the US as well as individuals here on campus and in the Buffalo community who are working to remove inequities to improve population, health and well-being. You'll hear from practitioners, researchers, students and faculty from other universities who have made positive changes to improve health, equity and inclusion. 

Jessica: Hi, I'm Dr. Jessica Kruger. And today, my guests are Adam Graczyk and Sidney McFoy. Adam, tell us a little bit about you and your program.  

Adam: Hi, great to be here. I am a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior. And over the last couple of years, when I was still a student at the School of Public Health, health professionals had this week-long summer camp. It was basically high school students where students would come to campus and they would learn about public health, do a lot of hands-on experiences, take campus tours, that kind of thing. 

I sort of became more involved this pre the previous year. We decided we wanted to make it for credit. So, credit offered an experience, the appropriate credit this school was going to pay for the tuition and fees. And then it was sort of my job to make the content more rigorous. 

So instead of just sort of keep the fun part of it, but also put it in lectures about epidemiology of things. 

So, this program was really for underrepresented minority high school students from the Buffalo area, first generation college students. And it was really introduced them all to public health. 

I think maybe probably tell you this may have been one of her first or the first time she heard about what public health was and like how sort of broad it is. 

We hung out and Zoom two hours, twice a week. We had a lot of different discussions and a lot of different guest speakers. I tried to bring some improv principles into the class rooms. 

We would use different warm up activities, but I tried to bring in sort of the essence of improv, where it's an improv, there is no failure. And I really like that sort of comparison to the classroom, because in order to have good discussions and feel like everyone has input in a discussion, that has to be sort of like a safe space. And if you feel like you don't feel safe and you feel like failing is not an option, you're less likely to contribute to the discussion. 

Jessica: So this Pathways programs are Pathways Academy sounds like a really great opportunity for students to learn about public health while still feeling that they can learn more about being a student. 

So, Sydney, tell us about your experience and a little bit more about you in this program. 

Sydney: I want it to be a pediatric surgeon. So, when I heard about this program, I was like, OK, 

this would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about public health and public health and how it affects my community and how it helps my community and how I can play a part in public health. And so, when I took this course throughout the course, we had a bunch of different like people come in and teach us about like their specialties. 

So, we had epidemiology, we had physical therapy, we had occupational therapy. We had some nutritionist come in and teach us about that. I think my favorite was probably epidemiology and much of because of the situation that we're in right now. And I just didn't really know a lot about, you know, pandemics and epidemics before I experienced one for myself. 

And so, this program just gave me the opportunity to broaden my horizons and learn more about how I as an individual can contribute to public health and how it affects me and my community. 

Jessica: That's awesome to hear. I can't wait to see you become a pediatric surgeon. That's going to be an amazing goal to reach for your journey. But it sounds like some of these skills have really helped you and maybe even motivated you. 

Could you tell me more about that?  

Sydney: So, I'm a sophomore in high school, so I'm not sure what college I wanted to go to or even now I don't know what college I want to go to. But this program really helped me, you know, like stay focused in school. 

And it motivated me to they often talk about a lot of the people we saw. They talked about how important education is and how important, you know, like getting educated and going to school and having good grades and going to college. How important that is as far as, you know, individuals. And so, it helped me stay motivated in school and it helped me like it helped me want to learn. 

I came to class wanting to learn new things. So, we had this one lady come in and she was she did like admissions for four. U.B. Laura, Laura Connel is one. That's great. She's taught us all about what we need, like SAT scores and stuff and like what we need to get into B and what we need to do, even as like freshmen and sophomores, what we can do to further our education. 

Jessica: That's great to be able to know how to get to where you want to go. It's almost like a GPS on your way or a map that shows you to the Treasurer of Education. 

It sounds like you're well on your way out to tell us a little bit more about how you instill some of these skills into students and how you kind of built this curriculum to help ensure students are successful. 

Adam: We wanted to try to keep as many sorts of hands-on or different activities. We really wanted to have more group activity students, whether it was for a grade or not. 

It's sort of engagement there. But we really wanted to have opportunities for mentoring. 

So, we actually brought in all of the UB undergrad public health ambassadors. And we had this final project where each student would take your photo, a photo within their community that illustrate a public health problem. 

And then they would talk about that problem and what they could do with a degree in public health, how you could address that problem. And the ambassadors signed on every week and work with them sort of in groups of two or three. Yeah. I mean, like Sydney was saying to I wanted to have not just talk about public health topics and health professionals, professionals come in, but also, I'd like the college prep and what it was like being a student. They had a lot of opportunity to talk to the ambassadors, be like, what's it like on campus? 

What's it like being a student? And as much as I try, I'm getting further away from the age I was when I was an undergrad student. So, it's definitely more difficult for me to relate to that. But I think it was just.  me, it was a great experience because like. I was able to sort of instill passion, I guess, or get them to get them excited about it, and that's what I really like doing, just overall teacher. 

But they taught me a lot, too. And I really loved learning about their communities and what they would do to fix problems. And it was really we had so many great conversations.  

Jessica: Sydney, tell us about what your project was. I'm interested to know about these projects. 

Sydney: OK, so we had our final project and our goal, I guess, was to figure out a problem in our community that had to do with public health. And so, we had to take we had to take a picture of this problem and we had to write a report on it and then we had to present it. 

So, the topic that I chose was the disregard for COVID in the Black community. And the picture that I had was a picture of a mask and gloves, a picture of gloves, and it was just on the side of the road. And so, I took that as it represented what my topic was about. And I just wanted to bring awareness to the difficulties between the black community in the medical community, why people aren't taking it as seriously as they should. And then I wrote about how, like older people in the Black community that they have, they're more at risk to get sick or to die than people of other colors or white people. 

And Black people in general are more intergenerational. So, grandparents live with, you know, their kids and their grandkids. And so, if a six-year-old comes home and gets and is sick and they give it to their seven their 70-year-old grandfather, and then they get really sick, you know, then that's an issue. 

And so, I just talked about how they can become more aware of it and be safer. 

So, where mass social distance, follow CDC guidelines and then other things like taking the vaccine and a lot of reason that people don't take the vaccine is because they don't trust the medical professionals. 

And so, one thing that I said was a solution for that was that we could have vaccine stations be at like local churches and local community centers, places that people in the black community trust, people that they trust. 

Jessica: That was really profound finding. And that picture, I think, will stick with me forever. 

And the representation is, sadly, we see that around more and more often. 

But I think your solution to this problem is also quite innovative and something that we have started to see happen as we see people who are hesitant for their second vaccine. 

So, you're wise beyond your years. This is great. Maybe you should come over to public help instead of going to that pediatric raveled. I'm sure Adam has tried to convert you too. 

Adam, you want to tell us a little bit more about your main goal with this final project and how that this final project has maybe help students to really synthesize what it is to be a public health professional? 

Adam: Right. So, I think I mean, it's pretty powerful. Obviously, you could describe we've described the photo, but the way we'll see it, it's pretty powerful. What just a single photo can illustrate. And the ways that you describe the problem and how you solve the problem that all stems from is the single photo. 

But I think the most important thing is that she made a personal connection. It's in her neighborhood. And I think when you're able to do that, make it have a personal connection or make it more personal, you're really able to sort of embrace new ideas, new concepts in a different way than you would use just hearing about it in a lecture hall or something. 

I think it's so important that we really have some of these immersive experiences for our students and get them to see the problems around them, because I'm sure, Sydney, as you were doing this, this was not the only problem that you saw within your community, but it begins to help you think about other challenges that your community might be facing. 

Jessica: So, I have to ask Sydney, what was your favorite part about this program? 

Sydney: I would definitely say the whole like getting to meet new people. And when we have discussions, I love having discussions. I love just like open discussion. And everyone's just throwing in their two cents. I love those. So just getting to meet new people, hearing no opinions, you know, like hearing new ideas and just, you know, open discussion with new people. It was great. That was probably my favorite aspect of it. That's awesome. 

Jessica: And I, I bet it gives you a little bit of a different perspective about what college is. I myself am a first-generation student and I wish there was a program like this for me because I had no clue what college would be like. 

Did you feel like this made you a little bit more comfortable thinking about colleges and being part of a university life in the future? 

Sydney: Definitely. The ambassadors, my ambassadors, she was you know, she goes to UB and she just was so open about her college experience and so I could just ask questions and she would tell me about like classes and living in a dorm, having a roommate, being away from home. Just all of those things, things that I was nervous about. 

She just explained it to me and, you know, kind of helped me kind of help ease my nerves about college. So, yes, I definitely feel like it has. Help me feel more confident about going to college. 

Jessica: Fantastic. What was your favorite part?  

Adam: It was really I would also say the discussions. 

I was I was excited that I was able to do some of the teaching techniques that I do with the undergrad level. And I just I, I hadn't taught high school kids before. And it's not like, oh, well, I'll try to do similar things that what I do and at work. And I do feel like there was just such a lot of the students there to sort of embrace the material. And they asked lots of questions and it was great. They weren't shy to ask questions. I just think it was it was very rewarding. 

Jessica: Yeah, most definitely, especially when you make those connections with students and can see that light bulb moment, I know this is faculty really live for that. And I'm sure you had a lot of those in this class. 

Adam: Yeah. And we've got a lot of qualitative feedback. I do have a few numbers that I could share. How successful pathway's academy. So, to be at the beginning of the academy. 

At the end, we gave a 15-question public health knowledge quiz, and it just basically asked different questions about public health. 

And they were all sorts of topics that we were going to cover throughout the seven-week period at the beginning of the academy. The average was an eight out of 15. And at the end, the average was a 12 and 15. So we definitely saw improvement there. 

We also looked at self-efficacy, their confidence in their ability to succeed in a public health or health profession. We saw almost a 10-point increase from the beginning of the academy to the end. Also saw a positive increase in public health attitudes, positive attitudes to public health, and we did see an increase in intentions to pursue a career in public health professions by the end. So just really, really good stuff there.  

Jessica: Sounds like an amazing success in Sydney. Kind of highlighted some of those findings as we've been talking to her around her confidence and even knowledge about public health. 

Now the nation knows what we do, the pre-pandemic, many people didn't. And so, I'm glad more students are interested in learning about this profession. 

I like to wrap up with every episode with what's next. So, tell us what's next for you, Sydney, on your journey to your next step in education. What are you looking forward to? 

Sydney: I will be starting. I'm almost done with my sophomore year, so I'll be going into junior year in a couple of months. I've signed up for numerous AP classes, so I'm excited for that. I signed up for was AP psychology. 

And I'm very excited because I love learning about like humans and what makes humans humans and why they do what they do. So, I'm very excited for that class.  

Jessica: Yeah, that's awesome. And that health, behavior and psychology are very closely related. So, I'm sure you're going to be able to bring some of that information that you learned into your next semester. 

That's awesome. Adam, how about you?  

Adam: I'm going to Disney World. No, I'm just kidding. I look forward to sort of growing this program. And year after year, we're going to have like this really large group of people. And I'd love to just have, like, summer. Events or something like a cookout or other events on campus and just sort of continue to follow up with all with all the students, see where they're at and what they're doing, I think it's really cool. Sounds like you made some lifelong connections here with students. 

And I'm sure you'll watch them all be very successful to. 

Jessica: Thank you very much. Today's guest worker, Adam Graczyk and Sydney McFoy, thank you very much. 

This has been another episode of Buffalo Health Cast. Tune in next time to hear more about health equity in Buffalo, the US and around the globe.