California is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse states in the United States. In fact, racial and ethnic minorities are now the majority in California, with the proportion of Latinos now surpassing Whites. However, non-White groups – namely, Latinos, African-Americans, and American Indians – are underrepresented in health professions that require an undergraduate or graduate degree. This issue brief summarizes known barriers to increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in health professions, presents a framework for recruitment, retention, and successes of URM health professions trainees, and provides examples of strategies for increasing the number of URM health professions trainees in California. The barriers to entering the health professions include:
- The cost of education
- Lack of academic preparation; admissions requirements, especially for doctoral degree programs
- Lack of concordant mentors
- Stereotype threat
- Limited exposure to health careers
- Poor advising.
An adaptation of the Initiative to Maximize Student Development framework is presented as a way to organize strategies for successful recruitment, retention, and advancement of URMs in health professions. The framework’s three categories are:
- Forming institutional partnerships,
- Providing tailored student support / academic success, and
- Engaging faculty / institutional change
We use this framework to organize the multitude of strategies uncovered through literature review and interviews. Examples of specific and detailed strategies for overcoming the barriers are summarized in Table 1 on page 13.
Implementing strategies that encompass all elements of the framework is critical to increasing the numbers of URMs in the health professions. Institutional partnerships are essential to provide young URMs with the knowledge and confidence to pursue health professions education. Tailored academic, financial, and psychosocial support enable students to maximize their potential. Institutional change is perhaps the most difficult part of the framework to implement, but it is also the most important. Health professions schools need leaders who are willing to invest institutional resources to increase racial/ethnic diversity and to guide faculty in implementing holistic procedures for reviewing applications for admission and creating a climate of inclusion. (author summary) #P4HEwebinarApril2024