EDI News & Op-Eds

The Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Anti-Racism Community is a community of graduate students and faculty from the Duke Clinical Psychology Program that aims to address systematic racism on Duke’s campus. Duke Psychiatry's Zach Rosenthal, PhD, who also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, is the faculty lead for the group.

Ryan Slauer, MD, a fourth-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident, and Lynette Staplefoote-Boynton, MD, MPH, a third-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident, have received this year’s James H. Carter, Sr. Community Service Award, established in honor of Carter’s dedication to serving the underserved.

Two new proposed state laws targeting LGBTQ+ youth in North Carolina would drive up suicide rates, restrict health care providers and limit schools’ ability to provide safe havens for students, three Duke experts—including Duke Psychiatry's Dane Whicker, PhD, and Sarah Wilson, PhD—said Wednesday.

Through a new National Institutes of Health grant, Sarah “Sadie” Wilson, PhD, hopes to reduce inequities that place Latinx individuals at higher risk of HIV. She’s partnering with her friend and colleague, Joaquin Carcaño, director of southern health policy at Latinos in the South, to launch a community-based, equity-focused initiative in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.

Starting as a grassroots project, Neurodiversity Connections aims to help neurodivergent students access mental health care, academic resources and other relevant materials through existing organizations on campus. Duke Psychiatry's Tara Chandrasekhar, MD, is one of the co-founders of the group.

Duke Health is among the health systems across the state that are using the NCCARE360 platform to better serve their patients. Susan Spratt, MD, associate professor of medicine, is leading the implementation at Duke, and Elena Tenenbaum, PhD, assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is spearheading the behavioral health facets of Duke’s efforts.

In this opinion piece published in Modern Healthcare, Kathryn Dickerson, PhD, and Kafui Dzirasa, MD, PhD, of Duke Psychiatry and Tracie Locklear, PhD, of North Carolina Central University, explain how companies and universities can partner to bring more people of color into careers in medical research.

Latinx children are disproportionately impacted by mental health care inequities, including for ADHD. To help address this issue locally, a team of ADHD researchers and clinicians from Duke Psychiatry is partnering with staff from El Futuro—a non-profit outpatient clinic that provides comprehensive mental health services for Latinx families—to develop a culturally-adapted approach that enhances existing ADHD treatment for Latinx families in the Durham community. 

Ensuring equity in research is a critical step in advancing health equity. In this perspective published in the journal "Health Equity," the authors—including Duke Psychiatry's Dane Whicker, PhD, and colleagues from the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute and North Carolina Central University—introduce a guiding framework for advancing racial equity in research processes, environments, and among the research workforce.

Karim Abdelaal, a PhD student in neurobiology, has been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study. The fellowship program aims to build a community committed to advancing science through diversity and inclusion. Duke Psychiatry's Kafui Dzirasa, MD, PhD, is Abdelaal’s advisor.