This book offers a comprehensive summary of the current and historical trends in physician workforce diversity by residency training specialty and demographic identity group. This book serves as a one-stop source for physician workforce diversity from the perspective of training specialties, summarizing trends over time, historical barriers, and specialty specific interventions and solutions. Chapters provide a necessary foundational resource for medical educators seeking to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their programs and programming. It similarly supports health system and organizational leaders in understanding the current and historical landscape of DEI across medical specialties and demographic groups to inform their interventions and initiatives in an evidence-based manner. The book is divided into two sections: training specialties and demographic identity groups. In the first section, DEI within several of the largest medical residency training specialties is explored. In the second section, the representation trends of various demographic identity groups, including women and individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups, and deaf and disabled individuals, are discussed, as well as barriers and solutions to improving representation, equity, and inclusion. Each chapter will follow the same format: Relevant specialty- or demographic-specific literature is reviewed, discussing the rationale for workforce diversity and inclusion in that specialty or demographic identity group. Current data by race, ethnicity, sex, and other available demographics is discussed for various trainee and practicing physician categories across the training and professional continuum, such as practicing physicians, academic faculty, graduate medical education residents and fellows, residency applicants, and medical school graduates. Historical demographic trends are assessed over time. This is followed by a thorough discussion of specialty or demographic-specific strengths and weaknesses to DEI and related barriers, impediments, and interventions and solutions. This is an ideal guide for medical educators, department chairs in academia and private/community practice, health system leaders, healthcare organization board members and executive leaders, diversity thought leaders, search committees, and medical students and trainees, especially during their specialty selection process.

The United States is rapidly transforming into one of the most racially and ethnically diverse nations in the world. Groups commonly referred to as minorities-including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and Alaska Natives-are the fastest growing segments of the population and emerging as the nation's majority. Despite the rapid growth of racial and ethnic minority groups, their representation among the nation's health professionals has grown only modestly in the past 25 years. This alarming disparity has prompted the recent creation of initiatives to increase diversity in health professions. In the Nation's Compelling Interest considers the benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity, and identifies institutional and policy-level mechanisms to garner broad support among health professions leaders, community members, and other key stakeholders to implement these strategies. Assessing the potential benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity among health professionals will improve the access to and quality of healthcare for all Americans.

Intro -- FrontMatter -- Reviewers -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Boxes, Figures, and Tables -- Summary -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Background on the Pipeline to the Physician Workforce -- 3 GME Financing -- 4 Governance -- 5 Recommendations for the Reform of GME Financing and Governance -- Appendix A: Abbreviations and Acronyms -- Appendix B: U.S. Senate Letters -- Appendix C: Public Workshop Agendas -- Appendix D: Committee Member Biographies -- Appendix E: Data and Methods to Analyze Medicare GME Payments -- Appendix F: Illustrations of the Phase-In of the Committee's Recommendations.

Based on a 2003 workshop, this study describes current public and private programs and recommends ways to recruit and retain more women and underrepresented minorities into clinical research, especially physician-scientists and nurses. Federal sponsors should improve data collection, evaluate existing training programs, and increase the diversity of study section review panels. Public and private sponsors should create funding mechanisms with flexible career paths, and universities and professional societies should both play enhanced roles in fostering diversity. A significant push is needed to recruit minorities into nursing and provide more clinical research training for nurse-scientists, nursing students, and nursing faculty.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States: Data, Trends and Implications provides a timely, comprehensive, and integrated body of data supported by rich discussion of the forces shaping the nursing workforce in the US. Using plain, jargon free language, the book identifies and describes the key changes in the current nursing workforce and provide insights about what is likely to develop in the future. The Future of the Nursing Workforce offers an in-depth discussion of specific policy options to help employers, educators, and policymakers design and implement actions aimed at strengthening the current and future RN workforce. The only book of its kind, this renowned author team presents extensive data, exhibits and tables on the nurse labor market, how the composition of the workforce is evolving, changes occurring in the work environment where nurses practice their profession, and on the publics opinion of the nursing profession.

Nurses make up the largest segment of the health care profession, with 3 million registered nurses in the United States. Nurses work in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, public health centers, schools, and homes, and provide a continuum of services, including direct patient care, health promotion, patient education, and coordination of care. They serve in leadership roles, are researchers, and work to improve health care policy. As the health care system undergoes transformation due in part to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the nursing profession is making a wide-reaching impact by providing and affecting quality, patient-centered, accessible, and affordable care. In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, which made a series of recommendations pertaining to roles for nurses in the new health care landscape. This current report assesses progress made by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/AARP Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action and others in implementing the recommendations from the 2010 report and identifies areas that should be emphasized over the next 5 years to make further progress toward these goals.

Integrates the various disciplines of the science of health disparities in one comprehensive volume The Science of Health Disparities Research is an indispensable source of up-to-date information on clinical and translational health disparities science. Building upon the advances in health disparities research over the past decade, this authoritative volume informs policies and practices addressing the diseases, disorders, and gaps in health outcomes that are more prevalent in minority populations and socially disadvantaged communities. Contributions by recognized scholars and leaders in the field—featuring contemporary research, conceptual models, and a broad range of scientific perspectives—provide an interdisciplinary approach to reducing inequalities in population health, encouraging community engagement in the research process, and promoting social justice. In-depth chapters help readers better understand the specifics of minority health and health disparities while demonstrating the importance of advancing theory, refining measurement, improving investigative methods, and diversifying scientific research. In 26 chapters, the book examines topics including the etiology of health disparities research, the determinants of population health, research ethics, and research in African American, Asians, Latino, American Indian, and other vulnerable populations. Providing a unified framework on the principles and applications of the science of health disparities research, this important volume: Defines the field of health disparities science and suggests new directions in scholarship and research Explains basic definitions, principles, and concepts for identifying, understanding and addressing health disparities Provides guidance on both conducting health disparities research and translating the results Examines how social, historical and contemporary injustices may influence the health of racial and ethnic minorities Illustrates the increasing national and global importance of addressing health disparities Discusses population health training, capacity-building, and the transdisciplinary tools needed to advance health equity A significant contribution to the field, The Science of Health Disparities Research is an essential resource for students and basic and clinical researchers in genetics, population genetics, and public health, health care policymakers, and epidemiologists, medical students, and clinicians, particularly those working with minority, vulnerable, or underserved populations.