Thomas LaVeist, director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, discussed the impact and growing diversity of the nation’s population as part of his keynote address during Common Table Health Alliance’s Sixth Annual Meeting on May 12 at the Racquet Club of Memphis.

LaVeist, who also serves as a Johns Hopkins professor in health policy and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, said according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 90 percent of the U.S. population was non-Hispanic white in 1950. By the end of the century, that number had declined to 70 percent.

“The Census Bureau reports this pattern will continue throughout the 21st century, and at some point in the middle of the century, this nation will be a majority of what we currently refer to as racial and ethnic minorities,” LaVeist said. “This will be transformative of the nation.”

While this shift is taking place, LaVeist noted there has been an 80 percent growth in the proportion of Americans with Limited English Proficiencies (LEP), meaning they speak English as a second language or have limited command of the English language.

LaVeist said there are seven states that have more than 10 percent of the total population that are LEP. However, between 1990 and 2010, the 10 states experiencing the greatest growth in their LEP populations had not traditionally seen that form of diversity. Tennessee is among the fastest growing states.