Abstract
Public health careers are varied, spanning different disciplines, employment sectors, and health concerns. In addition to those on the frontlines implementing public health programs, there is a need to develop researchers who integrate fundamental basic research, epidemiology, clinical, and social and behavioral sciences to create new interventions focused on specific diseases and improving health. Since 1987, the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) has developed multidisciplinary leaders with expertise in cancer prevention who are collectively focused on decreasing cancer incidence and mortality. As part of this dual postdoctoral training in cancer prevention and public health research, CPFP has sponsored fellows without prior public health training to gain a Master of Public Health degree after earning their doctoral degree. In 2024, alumni (n = 189) and highly qualified applicants (n = 52) who did not join the program from 1987 to 2019 completed a survey to assess career outcomes. Survey responses demonstrated that CPFP alumni were employed across all career sectors (39.4% government, 39.5% academia, 10.8% private companies, and 10.3% other) and are retained in the research field (87.8%). Alumni credited the CPFP with being highly influential in their subsequent careers, demonstrating the valuable contribution of this multidisciplinary program in building the public health workforce.
Data availability
The aggregate data that support the findings of this study are available in the Methods, Results and Supplementary Information sections of this article. Other data that are not shown in this article are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author. The raw survey data are not publicly available due to privacy concerns and restrictions (ICF IRB exempt #2024-066).
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Acknowledgements
At the start of this study, J.M.F.B. was the Acting Director of CPFP and K.A.Z. was on detail to CPFP. The CPFP alumni and applicant respondents are thanked for their participation in this survey. The authors are grateful for the support and manuscript feedback from staff within the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention.
Funding
This research study received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, private, or not-for-profit sectors. The CPFP and evaluation of the program are supported by the Division of Cancer Prevention, NCI, NIH.
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J.M.F.B. initiated and developed concepts for study. J.M.F.B., S.M.S., and H.R.B. revised the 2011 CPFP alumni and applicant survey instrument into the 2024 version of the survey instrument used to collect responses from CPFP alumni and applicants. ICF team administered the 2024 survey instrument and provided aggregated data analysis to research team. S.M.S. drafted the initial draft of manuscript. All authors, including K.A.Z., analyzed data, and they commented on and/or directly edited the manuscript. S.M.S. submitted the finalized manuscript.
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Sherrer, S.M., Faupel-Badger, J.M., Zanetti, K.A. et al. Outcomes of the NCI cancer prevention fellowship program in training multidisciplinary public health professional leaders. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-45502-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-45502-4
