Support for DEIA Work | Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC)

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.” - Sun Tzu

Put your READI learnings to work to increase diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in your studies and programs by using these tools.

Once you’ve built a basic foundation of understanding of principles and values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, it’s time for strategy-building and action. Leverage the insights found in some of the support below to move from introspection and reflection to implementation and evaluation.

Read through the language of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility with our glossary. Understanding the language is one of the most important steps in building your foundation as someone who champions, lives, and practices the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion–personally and professionally.

Laws that are binding and enforced provide the amplification of the importance of diversity in clinical and translational science while policies provide guidance on effective ways to advance the actual and perceived intent of those laws. Some of these laws and policies are listed below for review and consideration as you think about how you will ensure that your research program aligns with and upholds principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility to help eliminate health disparities and advance health equity.

The National Institutes of Health and other CTSC's have created additional tools to help further the mission of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility work across different spectrums.

Glossary

Ability	Possession of the means or skill to do something; talent, skill, or proficiency in a particular area.
Accessibility	The quality of being able to be reached or entered, obtained or used, easily understood or appreciated.
Accountability	The fact or condition of being accountable (of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions); responsibility.
African American	An ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the black racial groups of Africa.
Asexual	Describes a person who lacks sexual attraction or desire for other people.
Asian	Relating to Asia or its people, customs, or languages.
Belonging	Be a member or part of (a particular group, organization, or class).
Bias	Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually considered to be unfair.
BIPOC	An acronym meaning “Black, Indigenous, (and) People of Color”, specific to the United States, intended to center the experiences of Black and Indigenous groups and demonstrate solidarity between communities of color.
Bisexual	An adjective that describes a person who has the potential to be physically, romantically, and/or emotionally attracted to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or to the same degree.
Black	A member of a dark-skinned people, especially one of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry.
Disability	A physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities.
Diversity	The state of being diverse; variety.
Equity	The quality of being fair and impartial; the absence of unfair, avoidable, remediable differences among groups of people.
Ethnicity	The fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.
Explicit Bias	Traditional conceptualization of bias; individuals are aware of their prejudices and attitudes toward certain groups.
Gay	An adjective that describes a person whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attractions are to people of the same sex.
Gender	Broadly denotes a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
Gender Fluid	Describes a person whose gender identity or expression changes over time.
Genderqueer	Describes a person who does not follow static categories of gender, embracing a fluidity of gender identity, and oftentimes, sexual orientations.
Gender Non-conforming	Describes a person who does not abide by traditional or cultural expectations—in regards to appearance or behavior—of their gender.
Health Disparities	Preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.
Health Literacy	The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.
Heteronormative	Denoting or relating to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.
Heterosexual	An adjective that describes a person whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to people of a sex different from their own.
Hispanic	A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.
Implicit Bias	When we have attitudes towards people or associate stereotypes with them without or conscious knowledge.
Inclusion	The practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized.
Indigenous	Originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.
Institutional Racism	Occurs within institutions and systems of power – refers to the unfair policies and discriminatory practices of particular institutions (schools, workplaces, etc.) that routinely produce racially inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for white people; individuals take on the power of the institution when they reinforce inequities.
Internalized Racism	Lies within individuals; comprises our private beliefs and biases about race and racism, influenced by our culture (can take on different forms, including: prejudice towards others of a different race; negative beliefs about oneself by people of color).
Interpersonal Racism	Occurs between individuals – bias that occurs when individuals interact with others and their personal racial beliefs affect their public interactions.
Intersex	Describes a person who is born with differences in their sex traits or reproductive anatomy that don’t fit typical definitions of female or male (e.g., chromosomes, hormones, internal sex organs, genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics).
Justice	Just behavior or treatment; based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.
Latinx	A person of Latin American origin or descent; the gender neutral -x suffix replaces the -o/-a ending of Latino and Latina.
Lesbian	A woman who is physically, emotionally, or romantically attracted to other women.
LGBTQIA+	An acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual with the plus indicating another identification not included in the acronym.
Marginalized	Of a person, group, or concept, treated as insignificant or peripheral.
Microaggressions	Everyday, subtle, intentional – and oftentimes unintentional – interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups.
Nonbinary	An adjective that describes people who experience their gender identity and/or gender expression as falling outside the binary categories of man and woman.
Person or People of Color (POC)	A person who is not white.
Power	The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.
Privilege	A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
Queer	An adjective that describes some people whose sexual orientation is not exclusively heterosexual or straight.
Questioning	Describes a person who is exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Race	A socio-political construct; categorizations of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society.
Racism	The belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.
Re-traumatization	Any situation or environment that resembles an individual’s trauma literally or symbolically, which then triggers difficult feelings and reactions associated with the original trauma.
Structural Racism	Racial bias among institutions and across society that involves the cumulative and compounding effects of an array of societal factors, including the history, culture, ideology, and interactions of institutions and policies that systematically privilege white people and disadvantage people of color.
Sex	Either male and female into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions at birth.
Sexual Orientation	Scientifically accurate term for a person’s enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to another person, including: heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, and other orientations.
SOGIESC	Acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, and sex characteristics, more commonly used in countries outside the United States.
Transgender	An adjective that describes people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
Trauma	An emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster.
Trigger	Cause (an event or situation) to happen or exist.
Underrepresented	Provide with insufficient or inadequate representation.
URM	An acronym used to refer to “underrepresented minorities” in science or research (primarily based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender, primary language, and/or disability).

_{Source: Dictionary by Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, Healthy People 2020, and GLAAD}

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