NIH as America's National Institute of Health Agency - Research Paper Example

? Diversity at NIH Diversity at NIH Diversity enables people at different geographical locations to interact or link with one another. These links established through diversity are part of the social fabric in most companies that creates a leveraging uniqueness and contributes to value addition of a company’s culture as well as its subsequent success. In the modern world, we understand that intrinsic diversity encompasses more than just gender and race but extends beyond the full myriad of factor ranging from physical ability to ethnicity to sexual orientation (National Research Council, 2004). This paper will compile a persuasive, argumentative essay showing diversity as an integral strategy for NIH. It will also seek to establish the results of diversity’s role in the general performance of the company. Diversity is a difference whereby people’s differences can be many and variable. In addition, diversity can refer to people’s commitment to recognize other’s ability and appreciate their unique characteristics within an environment that promotes and celebrates both personal and collective achievements within an organization. Factors determining diversity can from race to culture to religion and even marital status. NIH is the America’s National Institute of Health agency charged with the responsibility of carrying out research related to biomedical and health services. This agency is has two parts. The first one is the NIH Extramural Research Program that takes care of all biomedical research funding outside the agency. The other one is the NIH Intramural Research Program whose responsibility is to carry out internal research for NIH (Alving, 2009). Many due to its synergistic approach towards biomedical research best know this agency. As elaborated, diversity strategy enables a company define its mission. NIH has a mission who vision is to envision a world where mental illnesses are preventable and curable. This can happen through transformation of understanding and treatment of mentally related illnesses via basic clinical researches that can easily pave way for prevention, cure, and recovery. According to NIH, United States of America has a remarkable diversity that presents the greatest strength that this country has compared to all other nations of the world. At NIH, people believe that workers’ varied backgrounds and experiences act as an extraordinary resource that has potential that can NIH realize only through full talent engagement. In addition, NIH points out that it can also realize benefits of diversity through intelligence and subsequent drive of its members regardless of their ethnicity, race, economic, or cultural background (Rose & Cohrssen, 2010). Generally, there is need to engage diversity as a strategic measure of realizing NIH’s goals and objectives due to diversity’s ability to generate an integrated working environment aimed at achieving success. To begin with, NIH’s power of diversity as a strategic tool in achieving the company’s mission is highlighted by the solutions it provided for societal problems. Diversity at NIH brought about increased relative proportion of both racial and ethnic minorities in the America’s population. Additionally, analysts project that, by 2020, almost 40 percent of United States’ population will be minorities. Therefore, NIH finds it crucial to recruit people of divergent backgrounds and ethnicities who are necessary for researching on the nervous system since it draws a wide range of expertise that ranges from multiple scientific and academe disciplines. While in the same line of research, diversity also provides expertise vital for computation and engineering of collected data as well as molecular, cell, and biological systems expertise that are essential in analysis of social science and clinical medicine. Diversity makes it possible and easier for bringing these experts essential for seeking to understand and ameliorate the main burdens associated with neurological diseases. With reference to NIH report, diversity has made it possible for the agency to achieve a neuroscience workforce that has aided in both research of neuroscience and generally became a potent factor in decreasing health disparities among American population. Secondly, according to NIH, it is assertive that diversity is a business imperative whereby measuring the agency’s progress in ways that are supportive to NIH results-oriented culture and ethnicity was critical to the execution of the institution’s strategies. In 2000, NIH in conjunction with the United States Department of Health and Human Services carried out a research whose aim was to establish disparities of health among the elderly, disabled, poor children, and the minorities (Georgiev & Zoon, 2010). The research was also seeking to find out the average life span and the quality of life of these groups of people in America. According to the Managing Director, US Department of health services, it was through diversity that NIH and US Department of Health Services that they were able to obtain a profound report in this area of research. Their findings established that, not all US citizens are benefiting equally from the US government improvements and advancements in health and health care. This was because of the America’s continued growth in diversity that is resulting to a society with a wide and broad economic, educational and language disparities that hinder others from realizing gains brought about by health. Therefore, diversity has enabled NIH engage strategy in highlighting health disparities facing the minorities, elderly, as well as the disabled. With diversity as the main component reaching out for strategy implementation at NIH, the report brought in by the research which also incorporated Surgeon General’s report in Oral Health in America served as a wake-up call for action. The Surgeon General’s report put across that many members of racial and cultural minority groups were suffering in silence. It also did reveal that there were disabling oral and craniofacial aspects related to birth defects experienced by these groups yet they lived amongst the American majority (National Research Council, 2011). As a result, diversity made it worth and vital to raise an alarm in order to put an end to that silence. In fact, it called upon policymakers, private industries, community leaders, health professionals, the media and the United States public so as to affirm that not only is oral health essential to the general health, but also all people should take action in ensuring that no one suffers from oral diseases that are easily prevented and treated. With diversity as the torch bearer, NIH was able to campaign all over the United States of America that no schoolchild should suffer from stigma of craniofacial birth defects; no rural inhabitant; no homebound grown up; no central city dweller should face or experience poor oral health due to barriers to access to care or shortages of personnel and resources. Upon realizing the extent that diversity could take them, NIH made concerted efforts to ensure the research systems used continued to benefit the agency and the public. In that case, NIH was aware that diversity was the strategic figure that enabled them collaborate with the public and private organizations as well as individuals orchestrated by the organization’s principles whose idea was to promote oral health to all American citizens. Due to diversity, NIH could then heed to all of the partners it made to heed voices across counties and consequently all over United States to address the critical and vital need to resolve inequities in oral health that directly or indirectly affected their communities (Zwanenberg & Harrison, 2004). Additionally, NIH saw it was possible to combine this huge store of knowledge and experience with view of implementing strategies that constituted to national actions that crystallized the necessity and sufficient tasks involved for any single agency may it be the Federal government, private organizations or state health agencies to help curb oral health diseases. At NIH, the mission is to protect and preserve the integrity of equal employment opportunities and to keep diversity as a top priority. Diversity has made it possible for NIH to embrace similarities and differences that attribute to inclusion and accomplishment of the set goals and objectives of this agency. With diversity being the primary goal, NIH has increased its competitiveness that is actually a true and effective strategy of managing people. This has come because of the fact that the agency makes it clear to whoever comes at NIH should feel included and valued. Lawrence N. Self, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity Management who became part of the NIH team with 19 years of experience pointed out that, NIH agency is in the business of dealing with people. Therefore, it is essential to have a diverse workforce in order for people to see beyond the board and acknowledge that NIH is truly an inclusive environment, and then maintain that environment seriously. Documented evidence proves that, at NIH diversity is beyond measure. This is prevalent with the nature of this agency’s workforce. All the leaders heed to make diversity a central focus and surprisingly, their efforts are tangible. On putting on scope one of the main aspects of diversity continuum at NIH, which is in this arena the National Origin and Race and Disability collected data the results are overwhelming. As of the fall of year 2010, the NIH workforce comprised of 19,809 employees. Among them, there were 11,465 females (57. 9%), 8,344 male (42.1%). Race and national origin case wise, there was 60.9% Caucasian people, 20.1% Africa-America minorities, 2.8% employees of Hispanic decency. In addition, there were Asian/Pacific Islanders and American Indian/Natives who comprised of 15.6% and 0.5% respectively. Above all, others who identified themselves as having targeted disabilities and non-targeted disabilities comprised of 215 and 1,248 respectively (National Research Council, 2004). Practically, NIH is a living example of diversity and inclusion hence has a primary focus of increasing awareness regarding how attitudes towards differences influence management of talent, engagement of employees, teamwork, innovation, retention, and productivity. Diversity at NIH has brought with it many outcomes in all of the agency’s departments including operational and financial. Apparently, diversity played several major roles in both operational and financial departments of NIH and this part will use those outcomes of diversity’s role to measure its impacts on these departments. First, nothing would have been possible without diversity at NIH. At NIH diversity is a core tenet, which helped operations department attain a concrete procedure of meeting operational set targets by influencing responsibility (Zwanenberg & Harrison, 2004). President Barack Obama applied diversity in the operations of NIH by appointing Dr. Collins Francis as the director of NIH in July 2009 who in turn launched operation diversity by achieving the set operations’ objectives. Moreover, diversity enhanced commitment of steering operations of NIH by investing significantly on creative and innovative scientific workforce. October 2010 witnessed NIH award six grants worth $12 million for a period of three years in view of supporting exceptionally innovative and creative employees who would purposely transform NIH’s operation department with extreme knowledge. Once NIH brought on board the art of diversity, many people showed interest of being part of or participating either directly or indirectly in the matters of this agency. According to Dr. Collins, when different people of diverse backgrounds and ethnicity came together to form a scientific community at NIH, a lot of information was shared. NIH received calls from different people of all sorts of cultures and languages wanting to be part of the organization and inquiring on how to touch a person’s life through funding as well as becoming affinity members of the diversity and inclusion group (Rose & Cohrssen, 2010). Furthermore, diversity empowered both extramural and intramural programs financially through consistent funding from the government, non-governmental organizations, private companies, and individuals who all complimented on comprehensive efforts of diversity at NIH. In conclusion, it is clear that from up top to down, the NIH agency recognizes the essence and potent of workforce diversity through the committees and programs it formed which are serious on matters regarding diversity and inclusion. It has also made it crystal that, a store of knowledge and experience from scientists with diverse interests and diverse cultures can amount to aggregate and better results. Thus, as NIH continues to be as steadfastly committed to scientific workforce, this paper has defined diversity, shown how NIH has engaged diversity in its implementation of strategies as well as how diversity has affected the agency’s operational and financial departments respectively. Hence, as long as NIH remains attached to diversity and inclusion in all its programs, it will continue reaping enormous benefits from the scientific community and continue setting a positive example. References Alving, B., (2009). National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) Strategic Plan 2009-2013: Translating Research from Basic Discovery to Improved Patient Care. Pennsylvania:DIANE Publishing. Georgiev, V & Zoon, K., (2010). National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH: Volume 3: Intramural Research. New York: Springer. National Research Council., (2004). An Assessment of the Small Business Innovation Research Program: Project Methodology. Washington, D.C:National Academies Press. National Research Council., (2011). Research Training in the Biomedical, Behavioral, and Clinical Research Sciences. Washington, D.C:National Academies Press. Rose, V & Cohrssen, B., (2010). Patty's Industrial Hygiene. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Zwanenberg, T & Harrison, J., (2004). Clinical governance in primary care. Milton Keynes:Radcliffe Publishing. Read More