Center for Behavioral and Community Health Studies (BACH)

BACH and the SDPRC lead SDSU in graduate training for Latino students. In turn, SDSU is a federally designated minority-serving institution, ranked sixth in the nation for bachelor's degrees awarded to Latinos. In the past 11 years, seven Latino students working in BACH and the SDPRC have received their PhDs, and three of these are tenured/tenure track professors. Another seven post-MA Latino graduate students are currently working toward their PhDs in public health or psychology. In turn, BACH's influence on the health behavioral doctoral program sponsored jointly by UCSD/SDSU has been such that over one-third of all of the students (working with BACH/SDPRC and non-BACH faculty alike) over its six-year history have been Latino, probably the highest such concentration in any comparable program in the United States. To date, no Latino student has dropped out of the PhD program.  In addition to the PhD students, since 1987, 25 Latino students have received their MPH degrees working with BACH (and the SDPRC). Because of the opportunities presented through research and mentoring efforts, both the MPH and PhD programs have managed to recruit highly qualified Latino students who, in most cases, have had their choice of graduate programs.  The final index of effectiveness of the training opportunities at SDSU's BACH and the SDPRC has been the scientific output of these students and their faculty. Latino MPH and PhD students with BACH and the PRC have appeared as first authors or co-authors of scientific manuscripts and book chapters 75 times in the past 22 years.