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    Diversity Council

Mission

What is the Diversity Council? The Diversity Council represents the Division's (and membership's) efforts to provide education, resources, communication, initiative, and support regarding the relationship between health and diversity, broadly defined. This council is one avenue through which the Division and its members can address issues of diversity. The Council includes five committees representing important perspectives on the larger diversity issue. Our impact will be a reflection of the expertise and efforts of our members. Thus, I want to encourage you to contact the committees and get involved.

Chair: John M. Ruiz, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
1155 Union Circle #311280
University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203-5017
(940) 369-8228
John.Ruiz@unt.edu

Diversity Committees

Aging and Health Committee
Women and Health Committee
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Committee
Health Disparities Committee

• Liaison to the APA Committee on International Relations in Psychology

Focus on Health Disparities:

Because diversity can be conceptualized in so many ways, operationalizing it into meaningful actions and outcomes requires some degree of focus. Therefore, one the efforts of this council over the next 3 years will be to focus on issues of minority health and health disparities. Despite the general improvement in national health, race-related health disparities remain a growing challenge in the United States. The Center for Disease Control reports that ethnic minorities and the poor, factors that often go hand-in-hand, generally suffer higher incidence of infant mortality, asthma, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and communicable diseases as well as earlier mortality than non-Hispanic whites. The goal of the Diversity Council is to provide information through enhanced website content, programming at the annual conference, links to important sources of information, and other forums in development. Click here for the latest on health disparities.

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