DEI and Affirmative Action – July 2023 Newsletter

View this email in your browser

Dear Social Mission Alliance Members,

These past few months have seen many changes in the landscape of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. The Supreme Court has now placed major limitations on the use of race-conscious admission policies, which is compounded by new bills passed against DEI offices in higher education.

As a national alliance, now is the time for us to leverage the resources we have and work together to ensure a diverse health workforce.

Why diversity in healthcare is important

In addition to race, we recognize diversity in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, social class, and other identities.

Diversity in our healthcare workforce is necessary for advancing health equity. Lets look at some of the research:

• Greater representation of Black Primary Care Physicians is associated with better health outcomes among Black individuals (Snyder et al., 2023)

• Better patient experience is correlated with similar race and gender parity between physician and patients. Simply put, people who share the same gender or race with their physician, have better experiences. (Takeshita, 2020)

• Underrepresented minority health professionals are more likely to work in underserved areas (Goodfellow et al., 2016)

• Several studies have shown the negative impacts of racism and prejudice on patient outcomes. Just being around the types of people someone is biased against can help reduce prejudice. This points toward the added value of training a diverse group of health professionals together. (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008)

This was not an exhaustive list, as there is much more research showing the positive contributions of a diverse health workforce.

Recent headlines about attacks on DEI

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill banning DEI initiatives in public colleges – NPR

Gov. Abbott signs DEI bill into law, dismantling diversity offices at colleges – Dallas Morning News

Ohio Senate Progresses Bill to Ban DEI Training Requirements and Faculty Strikes – Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Keep an eye on DEI legislation with the Chronicle of Higher Education’s legislation tracker.

The Fight Continues: Diversity in Health Professions Education

While a lot of progress has been made, healthcare still has a ways to go in terms of diversity.

Let’s look at physicians:

Black and Hispanic representation in the physician workforce is 1/2 that of their representation in the overall workforce. This is just one example of the racial disparities that exist in the healthcare workforce.

Take a look at the data yourself at https://www.gwhwi.org/diversitytracker.html. This tracker lets you explore over 20 health professions, and has data on the current workforce as well as graduating students.

Let us know what you find and how you’re using the tracker. Post what you find on Twitter or LinkedIn and be sure to tag us (Twitter: @socialmissionEd).

*Data from the American Community Survey 2017-2021

The Latino Health Workforce

Documenting Latino Representation In The US Health Workforce, a new research paper in Health Affairs, is the first research of its kind to break down Latino representation in the US health workforce among the four largest Latino populations.

It shows the difference between representation of Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and “other” Latinos (which includes Latin Americans, Dominicans, and Spaniards).

Exhibit 1 from article, Diversity indices of Latino subpopulations in health diagnosing and treating professions in the US, 2016–20

Researchers found that Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans were underrepresented in all (eight) of the health diagnosing and treating professions surveyed, but overrepresented in most healthcare support occupations (ex: medical or dental assistants or home health aides.)  

Despite these findings, overall Latino representation among health profession graduates has been increasing over time.

Read the full article here.

Join AMA Health Equity Grand Rounds

Join the National Health Equity Grand Rounds event, Breaking Down the Ivory Tower: Building the Health Care Workforce America Needs, on Tuesday, Aug. 8 from 2-3:30 PM ET.

In addition to highlighting long-standing elitism in health education, speakers will explore opportunities to create a more equitable health care workforce.

Health care professionals may receive no-cost continuing medical education (CME) credit by attending.

Read on:

• Preserving diversity in healthcare after the US Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling (British Medical Journal)

• Ensuring health workforce diversity in the post-affirmative action era (The Hill)

• Will Our Healthcare Workforce Ever Look Like America? (MedPage Today)

Moving forward

The Social Mission Alliance will continue to support efforts that promote the diversity of health professions students, educators, and professionals.

As a community, we can recognize the harm caused by movements to limit diversity and use this as motivation in our work to promote diversity in health professions.

In 2021, a team at the Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity conducted a study of barriers to creating a diverse health workforce and identified many strategies to address these barriers. We  urge you to look at these resources and share any others that you may have.

This is not the first time affirmative action has been challenged. We can learn from exemplar institutions that have successfully created a diverse student body in absence of affirmative action. There are tools available, and now is the time to act.