The Jackson Heart Study (JHS) Graduate Training and Education Center (GTEC) is dedicated to increasing the capacity of graduate Public Health and Liberal Arts students from Jackson State University and medical, nursing, and pharmacology students from the University of Mississippi Medical Center to develop “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health”. This is done through the Daniel Hale Williams Scholar program that provides a certificate enrichment curriculum that occurs concurrently with the student’s regular academic program. GTEC aspires to improve the science and practice of keeping the public safe and healthy by empowering graduate students to enhance their ability to improve community health as they matriculate through the program with the potential to assume careers in public health or related fields.
Reducing the gap in public health expertise operating in underserved communities, improving health care delivery, and eliminating or reducing health disparities are important goals of the GTEC experience. GTEC believes that this can be achieved by recruiting public health professionals to take advantage of the training and resources available from the DHW scholar program. Scholars can upgrade their capacity in academic sessions that cover topics such as epidemiology and basic public health skills, and information relevant to public health practitioners.