Austin, Andrew

Racial minorities remain underrepresented among allied health providers. Pathway programs address this gap by fostering career exposure and mentorship for underrepresented students. A pilot program was designed to increase underrepresented minority (URM) students entering health professions through career exploration and mentorship. High school students were enrolled into a pre-post survey study through a healthcare magnet school having higher proportions of economically disadvantaged students. Career exploration included healthcare presentations and skills sessions. Students were matched with mentors based on career interests. 22 students participated. The program facilitated career exploration sessions, mentor-mentee meetings, and workshops with diverse healthcare professionals. Participants reported increased likelihood towards pursuing healthcare careers. Preliminary findings suggest similar pilot pathway programs may increase URM student interest in healthcare careers.

Background Diversifying the healthcare workforce is critical to achieving a healthier, more equitable society. Objectives The objective of this literature review was to examine and synthesize the literature on interventions to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in people who are currently enrolled in the workforce or in a terminal degree/training program and who are located in the following institution types: medical centers; healthcare organizations; and schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and public health. Methods A literature search was performed on November 2, 2023 in Ovid MEDLINE ® . We reviewed titles and abstracts of all retrieved articles from 2000 forward and the full text of articles included in the final review. We included English-language articles published in peer-reviewed journals that detailed 1 or more interventions to promote DEI in the United States and United States territories. All data included in the final review was extracted by a single investigator and charted using an Excel spreadsheet. Results The authors identified 55 articles for inclusion, 4 of which aggregated and analyzed data from many interventions. The remainder detailed 52 interventions across 25 states and Puerto Rico. Most articles did not include a comparison group (38, 69%). The types of interventions identified were: institutional change (14, 27%), mentorship (13, 25%), development programs (13, 25%), pathway programs (5, 10%), financial support (2, 4%), and workshops (2, 4%). Three (6%) interventions could not be categorized. Most studies detailed interventions in medicine (28, 54%) and nursing (11, 21%), focused on racial and ethnic (42, 81%) and/or sex (12, 23%) diversity, and targeted students (33, 64%) and/or faculty/staff (28, 54%). Conclusion Many different types of interventions have been trialed to promote workforce DEI in the United States healthcare workforce. These efforts must continue to achieve a diverse and equitable healthcare workforce.

ObjectiveThe aim was to evaluate representation of women in otolaryngology by examining authorship of research publications and presentations, awards, research grants, leadership, and membership in related organizations.MethodsAuthorship was reviewed from articles published in three otolaryngology journals from 2000 through 2021 to assess the frequency and percentages of female and combination of male and female gender authorship. Gender was evaluated for poster and scientific abstract presentations from 2007 to 2021. Gender representation was reviewed for institutional and society leadership positions, award, and grant recipients in the American Laryngological Society (ALA). Changes in the frequency of female and combination of male and female gender authorship over time were examined with Cochran‐Armitage test for trend.ResultsA total of 16,921 articles, 1,017 presentations, 480 leadership positions, 129 president positions, and 1,137 awards and grants were studied. Women were first authors in 4,153 (24.9%) and last authors in 2,935 (17.8%) published articles for which gender could be determined. Women were first authors in 372 (37.4%) presentations and last authors in 199 (20.2%). Most presentations had a combination of male and female presentation authorship (630, 68%). Women held 69 (14.4%) leadership positions. Of the award and grant recipients, 327 (28.8%) were female. Significant trends were observed for increasing female representation (first authorship publications increased 69.9% from 2000 to 2020, first authorship presentations increased 73.9% from 2007 to 2013, p < 0.001; leadership and awards from 3% to 18% representation, p = 0.02).ConclusionThe proportion of women receiving awards and holding leadership positions is increasing. Efforts that promote gender diversity may further increase representation of women in otolaryngology literature and among the grant and award winners.Level of EvidenceNA Laryngoscope, 134:2144–2152, 2024