Department of Public Health Sciences

Message from the Chair

Creating an Inclusive Environment

Public health is about inclusion.

Welcome to the UNC Charlotte Department of Public Health Sciences (PHS). We are a community of students, staff, and faculty from diverse backgrounds working together to advance health equity and well-being in an increasingly urbanizing world.

In our roles as advocates, educators, practitioners and researchers, we train the public health workforce to solve the ongoing and emergent issues that engulf our communities and threaten our health and quality of life. To be successful at improving health, we must be inclusive – listening, understanding and engaging the perspectives and experiences of ourselves and our communities.

Establishing an inclusive environment starts with using inclusive language. Acknowledging that we see the fullness of an individual and how they wish to self-identify. Acknowledging and respecting an individual can start with:

Using person-centered language – for example, “persons with disabilities” instead of “the disabled”
Using preferred pronouns – acknowledging and accepting that the world is not a binary gendered space
Using preferred titles to show respect – Miss, Mrs., Ms., Mx, Dr., Rev., etc…
Using preferred names – for some this may be a name that they were not given at birth, for others a nickname, and for others a traditional or family name