NCCIH’s White Named Change Agent
Photo: Lisa Helfert
Dr. Della White, a program director in the NCCIH Division of Extramural Research, has been selected as a change agent as part of the “NIH Champions of the Black Community” campaign sponsored by the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in honor of Black History Month 2021.
“We honor those who encourage others by their example and demonstrate unconditional commitment, compassion and understanding towards the Black community and who bring more of themselves into the workplace to make it more inclusive,” EDI writes. A key principle of the campaign is “allyship—a lifelong process of building meaningful relationships based on trust and accountability with marginalized individuals and/or groups of people.”
White is interested in the role of social and structural determinants of health in the use of complementary and integrative health approaches to improve health outcomes, particularly among health disparity and other vulnerable populations. Her NCCIH research portfolio includes studies of such approaches for health promotion and restoration, resilience and disease prevention across the lifespan and in diverse populations.
She is a member of the NCCIH diversity health and disparity working group, She also represents NCCIH on several NIH-wide committees on prevention research, women’s health research and program leadership. She holds a Ph.D. in health education and health promotion from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed postdoctoral training in public health genomics within NHGRI’s Division of Intramural Research.
You can read interviews with White and other 2021 change agents and game changers at https://www.edi.nih.gov/people/sep/blacks/campaigns/black-history-month-2021/nih-champions-of-black-community#6.