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Institute of Medicine
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Board on Health Sciences Policy > Institutional and Policy-level Strategies for Increasing the Racial and Ethnic Diversity of the U.S. Healthcare Workforce
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Institutional and Policy-level Strategies for Increasing the Racial and Ethnic Diversity of the U.S. Healthcare Workforce
Some U.S. racial and ethnic minorities continue to be grossly underrepresented among health professionals, despite the increasing diversity of the U.S. population. Efforts to increase the proportion of underrepresented minorities (URM) (e.g., African Americans, Hispanics/ Latinos, and American Indians) among health professions have met with mixed success, perhaps in part because major policy changes such as state referenda and federal circuit court decisions have limited universities' ability to consider race and ethnicity in admissions processes.
Relatively little attention has been paid to addressing "upstream" institutional and policy-level factors that may pose barriers to the greater participation of underrepresented minority students. The W. K. Kellogg Foundation has therefore requested that the Institute of Medicine conduct a study to assess the potential of institutional and policy-level strategies to increase diversity in health professions. This study considers whether these interventions may assist in efforts to increase diversity among health professionals, in conjunction with on-going "pipeline" efforts to improve minority student preparation and motivation for health professions careers.
Specifically, the IOM will assemble a study committee with expertise in areas such as health professions education, minority health, health care service delivery, economics, law, statistics, and health policy that will conduct an 18-month study to identify institutional and policy-level strategies for increasing the diversity of the U.S. healthcare workforce.
The IOM will:
- assess and describe potential benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity among health professionals for improving the access to and quality of healthcare for Americans;
- assess institutional and policy-level strategies that may increase diversity within the health professions, including:
- modifying graduate health professions training programs' admissions practices (e.g., by increasing emphasis on applicants' unmeasured abilities, interests, and skills, and de-emphasizing standardized test scores),
- placing greater emphasis on cross-cultural skills and competencies health professions training and accreditation procedures,
- modifying the financing of health professions training, and
- considering expansion of definitions of community benefit obligations to improve the accountability of non-profit, tax exempt institutions (e.g., medical schools and teaching hospitals) to the diverse racial and ethnic communities they serve;
- identify mechanisms to garner broad support among health professions leaders, community members, and other key stakeholders to implement these strategies.
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Last Updated: 3/24/2004, 01:57 PM
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