The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #60495

John J. Newhouse, EdD and David B. White, PhD. Health Services, Saint Joseph's University, Post Hall, Rm. 110, 5600 City Ave., Philadelphia, PA, PA 19131, 610-660-1578, jnewhous@sju.edu

Industry has a twenty year history of recognizing the strategic importance of diversity leadership. Corporations placed diversity leadership in the center of human resource policy and company-wide implementation. Seen as both a moral imperative and a source for competitive advantage, diversity leadership is now an unquestioned component in the management practices of America's corporations. This embrace of diversity leadership has been less recognized and less widespread in healthcare. Researchers have suggested several reasons for this delay on the part of public health organizations, but what seems clear is that there was a lack of awareness of the need for specific diversity leadership planning and implementation. This laissez faire approach has left public health organizations scrambling to develop successful diversity leadership practices. The challenge is made more difficult by the fact that corporate America's lessons don't always extrapolate well to the public sector. The business of healthcare is distinct and more complicated than much of corporate America. This means that public health organizations need to broaden their search for effective diversity leadership models and to be creative in structuring and implementing such leadership. This paper presents an approach to help public health managers achieve this goal. It offers both individual staff and organizational-wide processes for the development of diversity leadership strategies, behaviors and practices. This approach allows public health organizations to mirror their communities regarding the demographics of age, ethnicity, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation need for diversity leadership.

Learning Objectives:

• To understand the importance of having a committed approach for diversity leadership in a public health organization
• To know the critical process steps necessary to design, develop, and implement diversity leadership in a public health organization
• To be aware of the challenges and opportunities such an agency-wide strategy may present and how to manage both for success

Keywords: Public Health Administration, Challenges and Opportunities

Related Web page: N/A

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: N/A
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.