Effective mentoring of underrepresented scholars in the biobehavioral and health sciences is vital for the future of scientific inquiry, as well as for clinical and public health applications. Through the mentoring process, both the mentee and mentor can benefit by broadening their knowledge, skills, and perspectives relative to the professional goals and interests of the mentee. Establishing a trusting and nurturing relationship allows the mentor and mentee to identify short-and long-term goals, accompanied by strategies designed to maximize the mentee's success. Many relationships benefit from establishing explicit working guidelines early on, with recognition that flexibility may be necessary as the relationship matures. Adapting to the specific needs and challenges facing underrepresented doctoral trainees and early career scholars, we propose an integrative developmental framework informed by 3 fundamental assumptions: (a) the mentee's professional growth and personal development are intertwined; (b) the mentee's goals will evolve and sometimes change over time; and (c) reflective analysis of the distinctive skill sets, life experiences, and limits of the mentor and mentee will help strengthen the mentoring plan. A challenging issue in mentoring is how to individualize the approach for each mentee, recognizing the need to balance mentor support and advice with opportunities for mentee independence, self-appraisal, and creativity. We share our developmental framework with the hope that others may adapt this as a practical template to develop a joint plan amenable to intermittent monitoring to optimize productivity and personally rewarding professional career trajectories for an increasingly diverse workforce. Public Policy Relevance StatementBuilding on current initiatives and incorporating new and innovative resources while recognizing inadequacies of the past are critical for effective mentoring of underrepresented doctoral trainees and early career scholars in biobehavioral and health sciences. We advance an integrative developmental framework to help navigate this process. We wholeheartedly believe that mentoring is an honor and privilege and that it should support a professional environment that will be attractive for future recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce.
People with disabilities are a health disparity population that face many barriers to health promotion opportunities in their communities. Inclusion in public health initiatives is a critical approach to address the health disparities that people with disabilities experience. The National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) is tackling health disparities in the areas of physical activity, healthy nutrition, and healthy weight management. Using the NCHPAD Knowledge Adaptation, Translation, and Scale-up Framework, NCHPAD is systematically facilitating, monitoring, and evaluating inclusive programmatic, policy, systems, and environmental (PPSE) changes in communities and organizations at a local and national level. Through examples we will highlight the importance of adapting knowledge, facilitating uptake, developing strategic partnerships and building community capacity that ultimately creates sustainable, inclusive change.
Contributors examine the importance of conversations about racism that need to occur between Black and White people. One author presents the Welcome Table, an initiative of the South Carolina Collaborative on Race. Leveraging research, the director of the Racial Justice Initiative at Georgetown University, describes conversations that promote shared understanding and improve health outcomes. Another author brings a community perspective to the Mississippi Urban League, by creating safe spaces to support authentic storytelling. A researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham shares strategies that focus on improving conversations within academia. Finally, an educational leader describes methods to promote authentic conversations on behalf of students in a large, diverse public school district. The chapter concludes with Rx Racial Healing Circles™, which is designed to foster human connections to heal the damage inflicted by racism.
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