About the NCI Equity and Inclusion Program

Our Goals 

The NCI Equity and Inclusion Program (EIP) strives to increase the diversity of the cancer research workforce, build a more inclusive and equitable NCI community, address cancer disparities, and advance health equity.

Why the Program Was Launched

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are core values at NCI, and the institute has conducted and supported research on cancer disparities for decades.

However, recent events have prompted many organizations to re-examine their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The disproportionate impact of health crises on underserved communities highlights the urgent need to address existing disparities. 

Social determinants of health, workforce diversity, and inclusive hiring practices all play a role in achieving health equity. And while NCI has always been committed to fairness and addressing health disparities, we are now focused on identifying and eliminating barriers to progress. 

NCI, like the rest of NIH, is taking a stand to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within the biomedical community. 

How We Are Accomplishing These Goals 

Meaningful change requires investing time and resources, sustained commitment, input from stakeholders, and leadership from the top.

The NCI Equity and Inclusion Program is overseen and supported by a steering committee, the NCI Equity Council (EC).

Five working groups, composed of a diverse group of NCI employees, are examining how NCI can bring about meaningful change in cancer disparities research, the cancer research workforce, and within the institute.

The working groups are charged with:

1. Enhancing Research to Address Cancer Health Disparities

2. Ensuring Diversity of Thought and Background in the Cancer Research Workforce

3. Promoting an Inclusive and Equitable Community at NCI

4. Systematic Tracking and Evaluation of Equity Activities

5. Communications and Outreach for Equity Activities

Steps We're Taking

The EC carefully examines NCI policies and practices that may hinder equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility within the cancer research workforce. The EC also recognizes that community input is critical to achieving its goals, so it engages with stakeholders both inside and outside the institute. 

NCI has posted opportunities to get involved in its equity efforts.

In support of the UNITE Initiative, the NIH Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) released NIH workforce demographic data, including NCI, for the end of FY 2023. The data include a high-level workforce snapshot by race and ethnicity, sex, and disability status for Full-Time Employees (contractors, fellows, trainees, and Commissioned Corps are not included). The workforce data will be updated and posted annually to help guide NIH’s EDI efforts.

How We're Tracking Our Progress

The EC is setting clear metrics to assess NCI's progress. The Systematic Tracking and Evaluation of Equity Activities working group is tasked with enabling and supporting the evaluation and tracking of NCI's equity efforts. The working group will work collaboratively to establish baselines, ensure activities have measurable outcomes, and provide insight as to whether the EC's goals and activities are being met. NCI will disseminate its findings to the extramural research community and the broader public.

Useful Definitions

Accessibility: The design, construction, development, and maintenance of facilities, information and communication technology, programs, and services so that all people, including people with disabilities, can fully and independently use them. Accessibility includes the provision of accommodations and modifications to ensure equal access to employment and participation in activities for people with disabilities, the reduction or elimination of physical and attitudinal barriers to equitable opportunities, a commitment to ensuring that people with disabilities can independently access every outward-facing and internal activity or electronic space, and the pursuit of best practices such as universal design.

Conscious Bias: Biased attitudes about a group that a person is aware of; they can be invisible or visible and can be accessed. (Source: John M. Flaxman Library)

Diversity: Diversity includes all the ways in which people differ, and it encompasses all the different characteristics that make one individual or group different from another. (Source: UC Berkeley Center for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity)

Health Disparities: Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations. Populations can be defined by factors such as race or ethnicity, gender, education, income, disability, geographic location (e.g., rural or urban), or sexual orientation. Health disparities are inequitable and are directly related to the historical and current unequal distribution of social, political, economic, and environmental resources. (Source: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Implicit Bias: Also known as unconscious or hidden bias, implicit biases are negative associations that people unknowingly hold. They are expressed automatically, without conscious awareness. Many studies have indicated that implicit biases affect individuals’ attitudes and actions, thus creating real-world implications, even though individuals may not be aware that those biases exist within themselves. Notably, implicit biases have been shown to trump individuals’ stated commitments to equality and fairness, thereby producing behavior that diverges from the explicit attitudes that many people profess. The Implicit Association Test is often used to measure implicit biases with regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, and other topics. (Source: State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review 2013)

Inclusion: Involvement and empowerment where the inherent worth and dignity of all people are recognized. An inclusive community promotes and sustains a sense of belonging; it values and practices respect for the talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of living of its members. (Source: Ferris State University)

Racial Equity: The condition that would be achieved if one's racial identity no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fares. When we use the term, we are thinking about racial equity as one part of racial justice, and thus we also include work to address root causes of inequities, not just their manifestation. This includes elimination of policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race or fail to eliminate them. (Source: Racial Equity Tools)

Social Determinants of Health: Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. SDOH have a major impact on people's health and contribute to wide health disparities and inequities. Some examples of SDOH include, safe housing, transportation, neighborhoods, racism, discrimination, violence, education, language, job opportunities, access to nutritious foods, physical activity opportunities, and polluted air and water. (Source: Healthy People 2030)