Evaluating Whether a Career Service Office Equitably Serves Diverse Students at a School of Public Health

Abstract

Schools and programs of public health (SPPH) are designed to prepare students to enter the public health workforce. Career services programs support students as they transition to public health professionals. While SPPH enroll increasingly diverse students, the public health workforce remains less diverse than the populations it serves. Ensuring diverse graduates enter the workforce is thus an important aspect of career services programs, but career services programs are rarely evaluated regarding whether they serve diverse students equitably. Our goal was to design an evaluation for the career services programming offered at Columbia Mailman and to assess whether career services were inclusively and equitably utilized by diverse students. We created a rubric and used it to qualitatively evaluate career services programs and resources. We also quantitatively assessed whether students equitably utilized career services appointments and whether there were disparities in employment outcome by race and ethnicity. The program evaluation found areas of strength and for improvement. Career services can improve their services by using our best practices for program evaluation by assessing the resources they offer and evaluating who uses their services, to ensure their programs are equitably designed and utilized by students of all backgrounds.