Louis W. Sullivan

Enhancing cancer control programmatic and research opportunities for African-Americans through technical assistance training.

African‐Americans remain severely underrepresented in cancer control program delivery and research. Community‐based organizational leaders and minority junior investigators have received little attention as representatives of target populations, or as agents to deliver and evaluate efforts to eliminate cancer health disparities. This paper describes activities of the National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer II: Network Project, which has sought to address these issues. Community leaders and junior investigators received technical assistance (TA) and mentoring to develop applications for cancer education and community‐based participatory research (CBPR) projects. TA was provided to 35 community leaders and 32 junior investigators. Twenty‐nine community leaders won funding through the Community Partners for Cancer Education Program. Three pilot research applications were funded. Technical assistance may improve minority recruitment/retention in CBPR cancer control research and enhance understanding and elimination of cancer health disparities among African‐Americans. Cancer 2006.

Forming State Collaborations to Diversify the Nation's Health Workforce: The Experience of the Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions

Diversifying the nation’s health professions is essential in order to maintain a vigorous health workforce, able to respond to the needs of all Americans. The inability of the health workforce to keep pace with the changing demographics of the nation is a major cause of the persistent inequities in access to quality health care for ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. Ethnic and racial minorities have been underrepresented in the genetic counseling profession since its inception, despite vigorous professional initiatives to remedy this situation. Mittman and Downs published a critical review of these initiatives detailing recommendations for change in this journal in 2008. One of their major recommendations was the need to learn from, and join, efforts with other health professions in seeking to increase professional diversity in genetic counseling. This paper reviews new findings on issues impacting health workforce diversity in the nation, presents a case study of a national best practice to diversify the health workforce and illuminates actions that can be taken by the genetic counseling profession. The Sullivan Alliance to Diversify the Health Professions is a culmination of two historic initiatives for addressing the dearth of minority health professionals and is a national catalyst for increasing diversity within the health professions by forging state collaborations among institutions of higher education, health professions schools and other key stakeholders.

Keynote Address: The Need for Greater Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Orthopaedic Surgery

BackgroundAdvances in medicine in the past century have resulted in substantial reductions in morbidity and mortality in the United States. However, despite these improvements, ethnic and racial minorities continue to experience health status and healthcare disparities. There is inadequate national awareness of musculoskeletal health disparities, which results in greater chronic pain and disability for members of ethnic and racial minority groups. The Sullivan Commission concluded in 2004 the inability of the health professions to keep pace with the US population is a greater contributor to health disparities than lack of insurance.Where are we now?While African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans constitute more than one-third of the US population, they make up less than 10% of physicians, dentists, and nurses and less than 4% of orthopaedists in the United States.Where do we need to go?Increasing the representation of women and ethnic and racial minorities in orthopaedics will help to increase trust between patients and their providers and will improve the quality of these interactions by enhancing culturally and linguistically appropriate orthopaedic care.How do we get there?Pipeline enrichment programs along the educational spectrum are important in the academic preparation of underrepresented minorities. Collaborations between health professions schools and postsecondary educational institutions will increase awareness about careers in the health professions. Ongoing mentorships and career counseling by orthopaedists should enhance the interest of underrepresented minority students in careers as orthopaedists.

Research Capacity and Closing the Health Gap

&NA; In January 2000, the Healthy People 2010 initiative was introduced by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which set the nation’s health goals for the coming decade. In 1990, a previous DHHS administration had released the Healthy People 2000 initiative, which set goals to be met by the year 2000. In 1979, the first set of health goals for the nation was released, titled Healthy People. Thus, Healthy People 2010 is the third iteration of such goals. This effort has achieved momentum and indeed is paying off handsomely. The framework of the Healthy People initiatives, however, is just one gauge of US public health care status; it and a myriad of other programs and studies in recent decades reflect the gains and shortcomings of our complex health care system. In several areas, minority health disparities continue to be the weakness in our capacity building to achieve the nation’s health goals.

Grasping At The Moon: Enhancing Access To Careers In The Health Professions

A former HHS secretary reflects on whats needed to enable more minorities to become doctors and other health professionals.

An evolving agenda for the AAMC's second century.

Abstract The author presents a discussion of current problems in health care delivery and considers potential solutions. He notes that in the United States there is a wide disparity in health care status between the white population and the poor and minority communities, and that this disparity exists in virtually every health care category. Inadequate access to health care services, perpetuated by the high cost of health care, is part of the problem. The author analyzes many legislative and administrative steps that have been taken to address these issues, and many more that should be carefully examined. More emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention is vital. Another solution is to further enhance the biomedical research enterprise and work to prepare the regulatory system to quickly, safely, and effectively infuse this knowledge into the health care delivery system. Another solution is for physicians to be adequately prepared for this practice of medicine in the years to come. Acad. Med. 65(1990):226–230.