CDC Undergraduate Scholars Program Emerges as a Proven Model for Rebuilding the Public Health Workforce

A quiet workforce crisis has been building across the public health system in the United States, and a new editorial published in a special issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice argues that one federal training initiative may hold the key to solving it. The editorial examines the CDC’s John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program, a nationwide effort that has, since 2011, been cultivating the academic and professional success of undergraduate students at seven coordinated sites across the country. Among those sites is Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health’s Summer Public Health Scholars Program, known as SPHSP, which the authors describe as a powerful example of how structured training, internships, and intensive mentoring can steer talented young people into public health careers, particularly in government service and in support of local communities.

The scale of the shortage the program addresses is substantial. According to the editorial, attrition during the COVID-19 pandemic worsened an existing deficit in the public health workforce, which now needs an estimated 80,000 full-time workers to provide basic community services. Agencies at every level of government are understaffed, and the authors attribute this largely to a lack of qualified applicants rather than a lack of available positions. The paradox at the heart of the problem is that the pipeline of public health students has never been larger. Undergraduate public health degrees awarded in the United States grew from just 1,480 in 2001 to 18,289 in 2020, and in the spring of 2020 the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred surpassed the number of public health master’s degrees for the first time. Yet only about one in ten graduates holding an undergraduate public health degree reports employment with a government agency, meaning that the vast majority of this expanding talent pool never enters the governmental public health sector where the need is most acute.

The Lewis Scholars Program was designed to close that gap by intervening early in students’ academic trajectories. Over eight to eleven weeks, scholars participate in classroom learning and hands-on internships, supported throughout by intensive mentoring, professional development, and networking opportunities. A series of articles in the same special issue of the journal details how the programs function at each site and what they have accomplished over more than a decade of operation. The demand for these opportunities is striking: in total, the programs have accepted roughly 2,000 students from a pool of more than 40,000 applicants, an acceptance rate that underscores both the competitiveness of the program and the appetite among undergraduates for meaningful public health training.

The outcomes for program alumni suggest that the model is working. More than half of former scholars have gone on to enroll in advanced degree programs, including Master of Public Health, PhD, and MD programs. Forty-five percent of alumni work or have worked in public health or biomedical science roles, and another 20 percent have pursued careers in other areas of health care. Alumni now serve in health departments, advocacy organizations, community-based nonprofits, tribal health programs, and academic research centers, forming a distributed network of trained professionals across the breadth of the public health enterprise. For a field struggling to recruit qualified candidates into government positions, these figures represent a measurable return on a relatively modest educational investment.

Michael A. Joseph, PhD, MPH, Vice Dean for Education at Columbia Mailman and a co-author of the editorial, frames the program as more than a recruitment tool. The Lewis Scholars Program, he says, is a powerful model for how cultivating the talents of young public health students can open new pathways to fill the need for public health careers, particularly in government and in service of local communities. Recruitment is deliberate and targeted. The program intentionally seeks out first-generation college students and individuals who are members of groups that have historically been underrepresented in public health and biomedical science careers. The goal, Joseph explains, is to build a public health workforce that reflects the diversity of communities across the country, composed of professionals who are deeply connected to the communities and populations most in need.

A companion article in the special issue, authored by Troy Hoffman, MPA, director of SPHSP and Educational Initiatives at Columbia Mailman, examines the mentoring approach that underpins the program’s results. The programs offer scholars what the authors describe as a web of support designed to cultivate both academic and professional development. Each scholar is paired with one or more internship mentors who engage trainees in real-world public health challenges across a variety of domains, including governmental agencies, academic institutions, and community-based organizations. The scale of this mentoring effort is considerable: in 2025, across all seven sites, the programs recruited and trained 190 professionals to serve as mentors. Beyond internship mentors, scholars are also supported by advisors, preceptors, coaches, and near-peer mentors, creating multiple layers of guidance throughout the program and beyond.

Hoffman emphasizes that the support structure is holistic and responsive to individual circumstances. The program makes sure scholars get support where they are and when they need it, he says. Crucially, mentorship does not end when scholars complete the summer program. Instead, the programs create career-long connections with program staff, researchers, faculty, and community-facing public health professionals, all of whom continue to shape alumni trajectories in public health long after the formal training period concludes. This sustained engagement distinguishes the Lewis Scholars model from shorter-term internship programs and may help explain the strong rates of advanced degree enrollment and public health employment among its graduates.

The pathway from scholar to public health professional is illustrated by the experience of Kennedy Wade, MPH ’26, who applied to SPHSP in 2023 as a rising senior at Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black university. A public health major, Wade was drawn to the opportunity to do hands-on work in the field. After her acceptance, she expressed an interest in environmental health and housing, and the program placed her in an internship with a researcher studying smoke-free policies in public housing in New York City. Wade describes the placement as her first experience doing community-based public health work, an experience that deepened her interest in environmental health and helped her grow substantially as an aspiring public health professional.

Wade’s trajectory continued at Columbia Mailman itself. She is one of 25 SPHSP graduates who have gone on to study for a master’s degree at the school since 2023, when Columbia Mailman took over leadership of the program from Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. After graduating with a Columbia Mailman MPH in Epidemiology earlier this year, Wade became a CDC/CSTE Injury Epidemiology Fellow at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where she works in the Bureau of Environmental Surveillance and Policy. Since starting the position over the summer, she has explored a different side of environmental health, with work ranging from traffic-related injuries to falls among older adults. In November, she is scheduled to present her research on the impact of greened vacant lots on adolescent victimization and perpetration at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting.

Three years after her own summer in the program, Wade says its influence remains strong. She credits the program with providing learning, hands-on experience, and a feeling of community, and notes that she is still close with everyone in her cohort, with program leaders remaining in her corner from the beginning. Her account, like the editorial’s broader analysis, points to the central argument of the special issue: that investing early in a diverse, well-mentored cohort of undergraduates can transform individual lives while simultaneously addressing a national staffing shortfall. As public health agencies continue to grapple with an estimated 80,000-worker gap, the Lewis Scholars Program offers a documented, replicable template for converting the growing population of public health graduates into the government workforce that communities depend on.

Subject of Research: The CDC John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program as a workforce development model for public health

Article Title: CDC undergraduate pathway program offers a model of success at Columbia Mailman and beyond

Article References: CDC undergraduate pathway program offers a model of success at Columbia Mailman and beyond. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: public health workforce, CDC, John R. Lewis Scholars Program, Columbia Mailman, undergraduate training, mentorship, health equity, epidemiology, government employment, workforce shortage, SPHSP, public health education