An Authentic Poverty Simulation for Health Care Profession Students Using Community Volunteers Experiencing Poverty

BACKGROUND: Poverty is a harsh reality for more than 40 million Americans, which can lead to detrimental health outcomes. PROBLEM: Considering health professionals encounter clients of low-income status, increasing awareness and empathy toward this population is essential. APPROACH: This article describes a novel approach to conducting poverty simulations by using community volunteers that are currently living or have recently lived in poverty, lending to a more authentic experience for students. The community volunteers acted as resource workers during the simulation. OUTCOMES: Five lessons were learned as part of this authentic approach including the importance of orientation, consistent volunteer recruitment, volunteer appreciation, simulation role ownership, and importance of incentives. CONCLUSION: This approach is an effective initial step in increasing awareness and empathy among health care profession students toward individuals living in poverty. Use of community volunteers with personal experience with poverty enhances the realism of this experience for students.