DGHI’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion is advanced through the work of various committees, including groups convened by the institute and others led by students and stakeholders.

Convened as one of the key recommendations of the DGHI Equity Task Force, the EIT works with unit leads and senior leadership to execute ETF recommendations, develop accountability measures, and research best practices for diversity and equity work in academia.

The Equity Task Force was formed in summer 2020 to explore the institute’s current policies and procedures and their impact on equity, inclusion and belonging. The ETF, comprising global health faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and alumni, completed a thorough review of DGHI’s missions and operations, focusing on education, internal operations, external operations and communications, global partnerships, centers and labs, and faculty.

The Duke Decolonizing Global Health (DGH) student working group was formed in 2018 by former Master of Science in Global Health students Andrea Koris, Laura Mkumba and Yadurshini Raveendran to investigate the colonial history of global health and ways to better acknowledge and dismantle power structures in global health education, research and practice. The mission of the working group at Duke is a fundamental and systemic reimagining and reconstruction of the way global health currently exists and operates. The group works toward a world in which the experiences, perspectives and realities of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, who comprise the vast majority of the populations in which global health practitioners intervene, are valued, centered, and drive decisions.