Fostering a Diverse Workforce to Improve Health

Sponsored by Pfizer Investing in a diverse healthcare workforce is imperative to closing gaps in care for historically marginalized and underserved communities.  Research – as well as personal experience – tells us that when our healthcare workforce doesn’t align with patients—whether in ethnicity, personal values, or even communication style—patients receive lower-quality care and have lower levels of trust.  To achieve greater representation in healthcare—in terms of ethnic and racial backgrounds, languages, gender identities, sexual orientations, neurodiversity, and more—we need to strengthen workforce pathways, including education, training and employment practices to cultivate and retain the next generation of practitioners.  Given the importance of fostering pathways for a diverse healthcare workforce, in recent years Pfizer’s Multicultural Health Equity Collective has explored solutions in collaboration with the health equity community. This included a recent two-day, Health Equity in Action (HEiA) Summit connecting students and health equity leaders, as well as the development of a practical community-led resource by practitioners and policymakers working in this space, An Action Guide to Disrupt Inequitable Health Outcomes. The following distills three key priorities and available resources to help support continued action. Long-term Commitment Creating a representative labor force is not a one-generational change; it requires sustained, community-based...