Connie B. Bishop, BSN'75, DNP'12, contributed to "Raising awareness about health disparities: A call to action" for American Nurse Association's blog. 

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised consciousness about health disparities, institutional racism, and diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) in the nation. Nurses know these conditions exist, but typically conversations on these concepts have mostly included persons in academic settings and health care researchers. The lay public is not often conversant about these topics.

For more than a decade and a half, Gallup polling has indicated that nursing is the most trusted of all professions. Nurses embrace cultural competency and declare without reservation that healthcare is a human right. Our profession believes in caring for the person—body, mind, and spirit.

The pandemic has demonstrated an urgent need for schools of nursing (SONs) at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to leverage our minority perspective and help educate and advocate for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations and other disenfranchised people.

We believe that HBCU SONs are at an advantage when it comes to raising awareness and initiating research, education, and implementation strategies to address health disparities because our students, faculty, and staff have a lived experience with these disparities. This lived experience will help motivate students and faculty to engage in this positive change.