I want to invite everyone in the HCP workgroup to comment on this problem statement. This is Linda's draft: "To increase awareness of health professions among area youth to achieve workforce diversity, especially targeting those of underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds."

Lori's comments:

1. This is written as an objective and not a problem statement. It needs to be revised to answer the "why" something like, "There is a lack of awareness of health professions among area youth, especially among underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds." 

(Just to remind you, our current Objective statement for HCP is "Attract under-represented and disadvantaged individuals and prepare them for health professions education programs through health careers awareness and activities.")

2. I don't think we should have the word "youth" in there - or we should have the words "youth and adults" or "individuals". Our HCP is not restricted to youth.

 3. I know we are not looking at the objective, but one problem I have always had with the objective is that it says "prepare them for health professions through awareness & activities") Is that the only way we prepare them? Sometiems we do academic support.

So, what do you think about my revised version, "There is a lack of awareness of health professions among area youth, especially among underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds." 

Is this a root cause??? Does it adequately explain the problem?

I agree that "youth" needs to be changed to "individuals" or I would state it as:  "There is a lack of awareness of health professions among students and adults, especially among those from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds."

We could take out the middle-man and say:  "There is a lack of awareness of health professions among students and adults from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds."

I also agree with Lori that the objective statement is a bit too specific.  If we are going to get specific, we need to list all we do.  Maybe something like:

"prepare them for health professions through awareness, hands-on activities and academic support."

I think that we should use the word "individual" rather than youth.  I believe this statement suits our cause better.  I also agree with removing the middle man as Kelly has stated.  "There is a lack of awareness of health professions among students and adults from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds."