Toward diversity, equity, and inclusion in informatics, health care, and society

In June 2020, the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Board of Directors unanimously approved the creation of the AMIA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Task Force to advise AMIA on specific, actionable steps to further address matters of racial diversity, equity and inclusion.1 As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, I’m honored to serve on the Task Force along with other AMIA members, all committed to addressing DEI from their perspectives as informaticians and, for most, also from their lived experience as Black, Indigenous, or other persons of color. In parallel, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association editorial team has been considering how we can best advance DEI in our policies and practices and also address recently proposed recommendations for publishing on racial health disparities in a manner that appropriately considers the role of structural racism in disparities.2 I look forward to sharing the outcomes of our deliberations in the future. In this editorial, I highlight 5 articles in this issue that address at least 1 aspect of DEI in biomedical and health informatics or health care.