Welcome to the Justice, Equity,
Diversity, and Inclusion Center

The mission of UW Medicine’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Center for Transformative Research (UWM-JEDICTR) is to study and ultimately eliminate health disparities by promoting the principles of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in the research of vulnerable populations, and by increasing the recruitment, retention and advancement of students, residents, fellows, and faculty from groups under-represented in medicine. 

Research

Health disparities and inequities are prevalent in the US and significantly contribute to morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. Health disparities disproportionately affect Black and Indigenous communities of color, other marginalized populations, as well as rural populations.

Diversity in the medical workforce improves our ability to interact and provide care to our minoritized communities and contributes to excellence in patient care, community building, service, and decreased health disparities.

The foundation of health inequities research includes evaluation of the intersection of social determinants of health, biologic, and environmental forces as well as justice and access to healthcare. Disruption of health inequities will include supporting the ecosystem of potential researchers with training, resources and relationships.

Utilizing a public health critical race praxis (PHCRP) framework for collaborative community based research that ‘centers the margins’ using an equity lens, will allow for collaborative approaches to equity-infused research.  Knowing how distributive justice, equity, diversity and inclusion are intertwined for community activation and societal accountability are necessary in order to find solutions to health inequities.

Research Agenda

  • Evaluate and determine solutions to health inequities in medicine in regards to race/ethnicity, gender, geography (urban/rural), social determinants of health, and
  • Develop novel approaches to increase access to care
  • Explore ways to decrease language barriers to care
  • Extend research on environmental and climate health inequities
  • Further expand collaborative community-based research to develop solutions to health inequities

Leadership

Director

Bessie A. Young, MD, MPH
Vice Dean, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Professor, Department of Medicine
Adjunct Professor, Departments of Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Washington

Chief Strategy and Operations Officer

Glenda Roberts 
Director, External Relations and Patient Engagement
UW Kidney Research Institute and Center for Dialysis Innovation
University of Washington

For more information, contact us at youngb@uw.edu.