Partnership Focuses On Increasing Minorities in NC Health Care Professions

A group of twenty colleges, universities and state health agencies are working together to increase minority representation in health care professions across North Carolina.

They officially formed an Alliance to address the issue last week at Winston-Salem State University.

Peggy Valentine, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at WSSU, says North Carolina is among the most diverse states in the nation when it comes to race and ethnicity, but minorities only make up a small percentage of the state's health care professionals.

“In many cases it's ten percent or less representation,”says Valentine. “When it comes to pharmacists and it comes to dentists we are not meeting the mark and so without some concerted efforts, we aren't going to get there.”

Valentine says the group agreed on a number of strategies, including having summer enrichment programs for students and faculty, serving as mentors for aspiring health care professionals and working on joint research projects and funding initiatives.

Dr. Louis Sullivan has created similar alliances across the country and is working with education leaders in North Carolina to reduce cultural disparities in the field. He says more diversity will help address the needs in underserved populations.

“That affects the level of communication, trust and compliance by the patient because of the relationship that the health professional can establish with the patient, so that is why diversity is so important in an effort to improve the health of our population let alone the issue of equity in our health professions,” says Sullivan.

The North Carolina Alliance members say they will host a conference on the issue in Greensboro this summer. They've also created a new website to connect young people with health care professionals.

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