Our Vision: That Health Equity Research is a priority supported by all elements of the University of Vermont community and beyond. That Health Equity Research becomes a pillar of academic and instructional excellence which is incorporated
in all facets of clinical care, education, and scholarship.
Our mission: to build and support a productive and inclusive community of investigators who participate in Health Equity Research.
Our objective: to provide a source of information, mentoring, collaboration, and support for obtaining external funding.
Diversity: We acknowledge that academic medicine and science are part of a system that is inherently supportive of a single racial, religious, cis-gendered and male identified group, and that this has resulted
in centuries of discrimination, neglect, and harm to both those within and dependent on the work of our practitioners. We seek to help build diversity, equity and justice through:
Education of and engagement with our community about health inequity, systemic racism, and discrimination and the role played by academic medicine in these processes.
Increasing both the numbers and efficacy of diverse people doing this work.
Outward and inward diversity both in our daily work and in our relationship with the outside world
We recognize all elements of diversity within our community: race, ethnicity, country of origin, language-learning status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, economic and educational status, age, religion, or physical, cognitive and
emotional ability.
We are faculty and administrative staff who in 2020 saw a need for enhanced Health Equity Research in LCOM. The idea started with a phone call asking if we knew someone in the University community who could serve as a collaborator for junior
faculty in this area. Surveys and focus groups with potentially interested faculty were performed between 2020 and 2021 and analysis of that data suggested an increase in the infrastructure available to support this work. Although Health Equity
Research is not the primary focus of all our work, we strongly believe that support of this work in critical in building a more diverse, inclusive, and safe environment for our patients, trainees, staff, and faculty.