In July 2002 I attended 2 national leadership summit on eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health. The summit was held in Washington DC and was sponsored by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The Assistant Surgeon General told us and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health Dr. Nathan Stinson that DHHS has set a goal of eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health by the year 2020 and that this was the first of three summits to be held between now and 2020. The summit was organized around three issues:


1.expanding access to   quality care.
2. Assuring an effective health professions work force.
3. Improving research and data.

Many resources and presentations and networking opportunities

were provided for addressing these issues. Our  Cultural Connections Newsletter evolved from the work of the Delta Health Education Partnership's (DHEP's) Task Force on Cultural Diversity to address the challenges of recruitment, advisement and retention for students pursuing professional preparation as nurse practitioner, physician assistants, and nurse midwives. These connections between national and regional goals are inextricably interwoven, only the immediate perspective differs. Within DHEP our universe is the lower Mississippi Delta counties of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, while the US DHHS perspective is a nationwide one.

Over the six years and 13 newsletters a wide variety of issues have been addressed that directly and indirectly affect the education of nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physician assistants indigenous to