Dear NIH Family,

Thank you for joining me and members of my leadership team last Friday, April 30, for the first Virtual Town Hall on Achieving Racial Equity at NIH.  We had nearly 8,000 staff members join the live event!  Treava Hopkins-Laboy, Larry Tabak, Marie Bernard, Alfred Johnson, and I shared personal stories and experiences with racism and described NIH’s broad efforts to create a more diverse and equitable workplace at NIH and the institutions we fund, including how the UNITE initiative fits within those efforts.  We received more than 320 questions from staff in advance of the Town Hall.  Questions were grouped into themes which helped in forming 27 frequently asked questions.  During our time together, we were only able to answer 16 of these thoughtful questions.  To ensure you are able to access these FAQs, we are currently working with the T Committee of UNITE to develop an intranet site to post all questions and responses related to achieving racial equity at NIH along with additional helpful information.  Once the intranet site is available for the NIH workforce, we will inform you about how to access this resource.  If you couldn’t join on Friday, I encourage you to watch the archived video to learn about this important effort.

We would also like to get your feedback on the Town Hall to help us better understand whether it was useful and informative, and to hear from you on what you would like to see covered during the next Town Hall on Achieving Racial Equity at NIH.  Please take 5 minutes to take this brief survey and share your feedback.

We look forward to sharing more information with you soon on the upcoming listening sessions, focus groups, and other learning and engagement opportunities.  Again, thank you for taking part in this critical effort.

With appreciation for all you do every day for NIH,

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
NIH Director