My Experience as an NHC Student Ambassador

As a National Health Corps Campus Ambassador, my partner (Kateryna) and I have spent the last month of this semester promoting the National Health Corps Program, along with public health resources, and information at our school Community College of Philadelphia. Through The National Health Corps, our goal was to connect fellow students to resources in their community that grant medical information and access for affordable health resources at no cost. Even before we became ambassadors with the National Health Corps, Kateryna and I have been interested in public health and ways in which we could use our individualized skills to better our community. With both our prospective careers being in the medical field, we were able to curate events on campus with the same goal in mind: to make a difference no matter how small.

For our events, we wanted the message to match the demographic. With the college housing mainly young adults, we knew that many of the leading causes of death like heart disease have risk factors that with early interventions can be avoided. Our experience with the National Health Corps helped us build our leadership skills as we were in charge of brainstorming and planning our own plan for how we would introduce the program to fellow students. When it comes to public health, more often than not, young adults do not take the necessary steps to prevent illness and disease from happening later in their life. When we took these factors into consideration, we knew that the topic of preventative medicine matched the demographic of the school and we knew that was the approach we wanted to take. To put the idea of preventative medicine into perspective for the students, we provided information on different monthly/yearly health screenings such as physical exams and immunizations that students could access in the community or even on campus. The information provided showed general exams as well as gender specific exams, and a brief description on their importance.

With the growing numbers in the leading causes of death, there is a clear need for access to preventative medicine information and resources for all people. Preventative medicine offers young individuals a way to safe- guard their health, which prevents later illnesses and diseases from occurring. And just with that, we hope that the difference we made in presenting preventative medicine on campus, makes a big difference in the students' lives as they grow older. I think that the best way for us to continue these efforts is to continue to spread this information on campus, encouraging others of the opportunities that the NHC program offers, and also consider becoming a member of NHC in the future as well! Together we know that our fellow students can achieve greatness with the help of NHC. We know we can help our communities, and help those who are in need by breaking down health disparities and the systems that contribute to those disparities.

Savannah Outen

Community College of Philadelphia -Second Year student