Volume 9, Issue 1 (1995) Public Health and Communities of Color: Challenges and Strategies

The Summer 1995 issue of the Trotter Review, "Public Health and Communities of Color: Challenges and Strategies," provides a range of essays and two personal commentaries on facets of public health, race, and ethnicity in urban America. The essays are written by scholars and activists familiar with public health and issues of race, access, and diversity. The first article is the Executive Summary of the Institute of Medicine's national report, Balancing the Scales of Opportunity: Ensuring Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Health Professions. This report focuses on the problem of underrepresentation of Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans in the health professions in this country. The authors of this report explain why underrepresentation presents a serious problem to the quality of health in communities of color. The Executive Summary highlights strategies and suggestions for encouraging greater numbers of Black, Latino, and Native American students to consider careers in health. Special thanks are extended to Dr. M. Alfred Haynes for chairing the Task Force that produced this timely report, and to Dr. Marion Ein Lewin, the staff director of the Task Force, for working with us in reproducing the Executive Summary.