The United States Department of Health and Human Services, also known as the HHS for short, is tasked with providing adequate health care and social services for Americans. They are responsible for overseeing public health and ensuring that advances in medical sciences are applied to the health care provided in the country. In this article we will explore the demographic makeup of this department composed of thirty-one members.
Contrary to most United States Departments there’s a majority are female with eighteen members and a little less than half are male with thirteen members.
Although gender wise the departments leadership is diverse, we see that the racial makeup does not match. Eighteen leaders are White making up the majority. Less than half of the leaders are Black or African American with six leaders, Asian with only four leaders, only two Hispanic leaders and one Native American leader.
Eighteen leaders are white and thirteen leaders are all other American racial groups. When all other American racial groups are combined there are still five members short of making up half of all leaders.
When race is divided by gender we see that there are more females than males representing every racial group besides Asian and Hispanic which have half of leaders from each gender.
With public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally affecting all parts of health in the country, it is important that their leadership is diverse in order to meet the needs of the country.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2021. “About HHS”. (https://www.hhs.gov/about/index.html)
