Black History Month is celebrated annually in February, the birth month of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. This recognition and celebration of the important contributions to our nation’s history by its Black citizens began in 1926, when the founders of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) initiated Negro History Week. Fifty years later, it expanded the commemoration into a month-long celebration known as Black History Month, or African American History Month.
Hosted by the Library of Congress, celebrating Black History Month annually with the National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this website offers a wealth of historical information, including resources for teachers. Black History Month 2024.
Each year, Northeast Delta Dental supports organizations with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles similar to our own by sponsoring events and initiatives that celebrate the contributions of diverse communities that have been marginalized and offer opportunities for raising awareness of past wrongs and present challenges.
We make DEI a priority in our hiring decisions and in our recruitment of new board members. It is an ongoing facet of our training, and our employee colleagues meet with an advisor monthly to ensure that we keep our DEI efforts impactful and valuable.
This month, James McKim will be speaking to us on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), four concepts working together to boost team dynamics, productivity and innovation. Jim is a DEI expert and wrote the best-selling “The Diversity Factor: Igniting Superior Organizational Performance”.
We and the 38 other independent companies in the Delta Dental network share a set of guiding DEI principles that can be found at Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Guiding Principles | Delta Dental. An advantage of belonging to the nation’s largest dental insurance network is that, working together, the DDPA companies can make a greater impact nationally than each can achieve on its own. A good example is that Delta Dental Institute established an Oral Health Diversity Fund, the first national investment fund focused on ensuring more school-aged children from historically underrepresented groups consider careers in oral health.
Fewer than 10% of dentists are Black or Hispanic. However, those same groups comprise more than 30% of the U.S. population, and research shows that racial and ethnic diversity among health professionals is linked to better patient satisfaction and improved health outcomes. The goal of the Oral Health Diversity Fund is to improve the diversity of the oral health workforce. The first recipients of support from the Fund are programs innovatively addressing the racial and ethnic barriers that underrepresented populations face in seeking oral health careers: Diversity in Dentistry Mentorships, the Hispanic Dental Association, NAF and the Society of American Indian Dentists.
More detailed information is available at Delta Dental Institute Oral Health Diversity Fund (nedelta.com).