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Review
. 2025 Jan 13:41:100973.
doi: 10.1016/j.lana.2024.100973. eCollection 2025 Jan.

Intersectionality and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the healthcare and scientific workforces

Trenell J Mosley  1 , Rachel A Zajdel  2 , Ethel Alderete  3 , Janine A Clayton  4 , Shirin Heidari  5   6 , Eliseo J Pérez-Stable  7 , Karen Salt  8   9 , Marie A Bernard  1
Affiliations
Review

Intersectionality and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the healthcare and scientific workforces

Trenell J Mosley et al. Lancet Reg Health Am. .

Abstract

Enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the scientific and healthcare workforces∗ promotes research innovation and equitable access to quality healthcare. Efforts to advance DEI within the global scientific and healthcare workforces have assumed a new urgency given the strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the aging of the global population, and the persistent shortages in the healthcare workforce, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, these fields continue to struggle to promote DEI. Considering the impact of intersectionality-how multiple identities interact to create unique experiences of privilege and power-within these workforces will enhance efforts to promote DEI. This series explores the impact of intersectionality on scientific and healthcare workforce DEI and how prominent institutional and structural factors (e.g., sexism and racism), as well as their interpersonal manifestations, can create barriers for workers with multiple intersecting marginalised identities. This paper, the first in a three-part series, describes how intersecting identities interact with workplace inequities and suggests ways to incorporate intersectionality into DEI efforts within the scientific and healthcare workforces. ∗We use the phrase scientific and healthcare workforces throughout this article to broadly encompass individuals associated with the biomedical, clinical, behavioral, and population science workforce.

Keywords: Diversity, equity, and inclusion; Healthcare workforce; Intersectionality; Scientific workforce; Workforce diversity.

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Conflict of interest statement

Dr. Clayton sits on the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Heidari is a senior researcher at the Gender Centre of the Geneva Graduate Institute and Executive Director of Gendro, through which she is providing technical support to the WHO Gender, Equity, and Human Rights Department, as well as other non-profit research organisations on gender mainstreaming in research. She also serves as a guest lecturer at various universities and is the Co-Vice President of the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum for Human Rights.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Graphical representation of intersectionality. An individual's (diamond) multiple social identities, such as gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexuality, age, and more, (colored beams of light) are not experienced or impacted independently. Instead, they combine and reflect unique experiences and challenges created by macro-level power structures. Incorporating intersectionality (white beam of light) into DEI approaches in the healthcare and scientific workforces acknowledges these multiple identities and reveals the surrounding and interacting systems and structures of power (planes of the polyhedron).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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