Resources rarely devoted to diversity officers in family medicine
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Fewer than half of academic family medicine departments surveyed reported having a diversity officer and only 26% of departments with an officer provided protected time or resources for them, according to data published in Family Medicine.
The lack of investment “calls the question whether departments truly prioritize diversity, inclusion and health equity (DIHE),” Christine K. Jacobs, MD, FAAFP, the dean and vice presidents for medical affairs at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri, and colleagues wrote.
“Diversity officers require financial and human resources to recruit and to support faculty, residents, fellows and medical students once they join the department,” Jacobs told Healio.
Jacobs and colleagues evaluated the state of DIHE activities by surveying 94 member departments of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine in 2020. Completed by department chairs, the survey consisted of 86 questions on topics such as research, health care delivery transformation and faculty promotions. The researchers focused their findings on responses to seven questions concerning diversity and health equity.
More than 60% of family medicine department chairs reported that their departments promote DIHE and anti-oppression, and 66% reported an institutional infrastructure that is working well. A little over half of the departments have conducted a climate survey to measure engagement and perceptions of the workplace in the past 3 years, according to Jacobs and colleagues.
The researchers also reported that 47.3% of departments had a diversity officer. Among them, 53.7% of chairs reported that the position has a pathway to career advancement. Resource commitment to a diversity officer was significantly associated with the position having a pathway to career advancement (P < .001).
The findings may indicate that a “positive self-assessment by department chairs is more reflective of good intentions than strategic action and successful outcomes,” Jacobs and colleagues wrote. Institutions should survey staff and patients rather than assume the state of DIHE, Jacobs said. Departments should then use the results to create a strategic plan, create and support DIHE infrastructure and regularly measure and report outcomes of DIHE efforts.
“Making DIHE a central focus in departments of family medicine will have a widespread impact within the communities we serve, the institutions in which we work, and the health care system as a whole,” Jacobs and colleagues wrote.