Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellow Seattle Children's Hospital Seattle Children's Hospital Seattle, Washington, United States
Background: The field of academic pediatric hospital medicine is emerging as a new, rigorous and robust specialty with the opportunity to lead in closing racial disparities in academic leadership and fostering inclusive environments. There is no literature to date describing how the field of PHM engages with diversity and inclusion.
Objective: We aim to explore primary benchmarks of diversity, institutional engagement and inclusion in PHM programs across the United States.
Design/Methods: The Diversity and Engagement Survey is a validated tool developed to assess the capacity of diversity and inclusion in the academic workforce. Authors received approval to use the survey and administered it via email to members of the AAP Section on Hospital Medicine. Multivariate analysis was performed for diversity engagement total score using a generalized linear model to evaluate differences by demographic characteristics. Scores were reflected and a square root power link function was specified.
Results: The sample included 557 responses. The race/ethnicity characteristics of the respondents were White 353 (64%), Asian 92 (17%), Black/African American 45 (8%),Hispanic/Latinx 34 (6%), Other 30 (5%). Multivariable model analysis for diversity engagement total score demonstrated a statistically significant lower level of engagement and inclusion in Black/African American respondents 0.80 (0.72-0.86) when compared to White 0.88 (0.83-0.92), Asian 0.87 (0.81-0.92) and Hispanic/Latinx 0.88 (0.81-0.95) respondents, p-value <0.01. Conclusion(s): Similar to other fields in medicine, Black/African American and Hispanic/Latinx providers are underrepresented in PHM. Initial benchmarking also demonstrates that Black/African American respondents have statistically significantly lower total diversity engagement scores when compared to White, Asian and Hispanic/Latinx respondents. This demonstrates not only the underrepresentation of certain demographic groups in PHM, it also demonstrates that similarly underrepresented groups experience different degrees of institutional engagement and inclusion. A diverse medical workforce representative of the general population can advance health equity and decrease racial health disparities. Future studies could focus on how increasing institutional engagement and inclusion among faculty from underrepresented groups in medicine can lead to their increased recruitment and retainment.
Authors/Institutions: Courtney A. Gilliam, Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Washington, United States; Fatuma Barqadle, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States; Gabrina Dixon, Children's National Health System, Washington, District of Columbia, United States; Barrett Fromme, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States; Edward Gill, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States; Whitney Okoroafor, Advocate Children's Hospital, Oak Lawn, Illinois, United States; Walter Wickremasinghe, Boston Children's Hospital, Watertown, Massachusetts, United States; Heidi Sucharew, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States; Jorge Ganem, The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, Austin, Texas, United States
