Although minority students’  enrollment in schools of health increased slightly from the 1960s to the 1980s, the numbers failed to keep up with the growth of minority populations. “Missing Persons: Minorities in the Health Professions,” a recent report from the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce Together, says that while African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and American Indians make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population, they comprise only
•9 percent of the nation’s nurses,
•6 percent of its physicians and
•5 percent of its dentists.

Similar disparities show up in the faculties of health professional schools. For example, minorities make up less than 10 percent of baccalaureate nursing faculties, 8.6 percent of dental school faculties, and a mere 4.2 percent of medical school faculties. If trends continue, the gap will grow as the health work force of the future resembles the population even less than it does today.

The lack of minorities in healthcare is important because cultural differences and less access to healthcare, combined with high rates of poverty and unemployment, contribute to the substantial ethnic and racial disparities in health status and outcomes. However, research has shown that minority health professionals are more likely to serve minority and medically underserved populations, which tends to mitigate these serious health disparities.

The commission has come up with many recommendations to address the root causes of underrepresentation of minorities in the health professions. They include strategies to make education and training in the health professions more attainable and affordable for minority students, by shifting from student loans to scholarships, for example; reducing dependency on standardized tests for admission to schools of medicine, nursing, and dentistry; and enhancing the role of two-year colleges.

“Barriers that are blocking the aspirations of minority students to become health professionals must be removed. These include high levels of student indebtedness and lack of social and institutional support,” said Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, chair of the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce, and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. “Now is the time to confront the crisis facing the nation’s healthcare system and utilize the tool of diversity in crafting solutions.”

The recommendations were developed to attract broad public support and to encourage academic and professional leadership to share the commission’s vision for a health system modeled on excellence, access and quality for all people. The principles underlying a rationale for increasing diversity in the healthcare workforce are:

• Diversity is critical to increasing cultural competence and improving healthcare delivery.
• Increasing diversity in the workforce improves patient satisfaction.
• Underrepresented minority providers tend to practice in underserved areas, thus improving access for the most vulnerable.
• Diversity in the healthcare workforce has valuable economic benefits.
• Social justice is served. Healthcare institutions should view diversity not only as a provider issue but also as a core value that applies to student, faculty, research, leadership and provider populations.

For more information on the report, visit www.sullivancommission.org.