Chen Annie T, Backonja Uba, Cato Kenrick
Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA.
School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership, University of Washington Tacoma, Tacoma, Washington, USA.
JAMIA Open. 2023 Mar 16;6(1):ooac101. doi: 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooac101. eCollection 2023 Apr.
To assess the extent to which health disparities content is integrated in multidisciplinary health informatics training programs and examine instructor perspectives surrounding teaching strategies and challenges, including student engagement with course material.
Data for this cross-sectional, descriptive study were collected between April and October 2019. Instructors of informatics courses taught in the United States were recruited via listservs and email. Eligibility was contingent on course inclusion of disparities content. Participants completed an online survey with open- and closed-ended questions to capture administrative- and teaching-related aspects of disparities education within informatics. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics; qualitative data were analyzed using inductive coding.
Invitations were sent to 141 individuals and 11 listservs. We obtained data from 23 instructors about 24 informatics courses containing health disparities content. Courses were taught primarily in graduate-level programs ( = 21, 87.5%) in informatics ( = 9, 33.3%), nursing ( = 7, 25.9%), and information science ( = 6, 22.2%). The average course covered 6.5 (range 2-13) social determinants of health; socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity (both = 21, 87.5%) were most frequently addressed. Instructors described multiple obstacles, including lack of resources and time to cover disparities topics adequately, topic sensitivity, and student-related challenges (eg, lack of prior understanding about disparities).
A foundational and translational knowledge in health disparities is critical to a student's ability to develop future equitable informatics solutions. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for the intentional and required integration of health disparities-specific content in informatics curricula and competencies.
评估多学科健康信息学培训项目中健康差异内容的整合程度，并探讨教师围绕教学策略和挑战的观点，包括学生对课程材料的参与度。
本横断面描述性研究的数据于2019年4月至10月收集。通过邮件列表和电子邮件招募在美国讲授信息学课程的教师。入选条件取决于课程是否包含差异内容。参与者完成了一项包含开放式和封闭式问题的在线调查，以获取信息学中差异教育的行政和教学相关方面的信息。定量数据采用描述性统计进行分析；定性数据采用归纳编码进行分析。
向141个人和11个邮件列表发送了邀请。我们从23名教师那里获得了关于24门包含健康差异内容的信息学课程的数据。课程主要在信息学（n = 9，33.3%）、护理（n = 7，25.9%）和信息科学（n = 6，22.2%）的研究生水平项目中讲授。平均课程涵盖6.5个（范围2 - 13个）健康的社会决定因素；社会经济地位和种族/民族（均为n = 21，87.5%）是最常涉及的。教师描述了多个障碍，包括缺乏足够的资源和时间来充分涵盖差异主题、主题敏感性以及与学生相关的挑战（例如，对差异缺乏预先了解）。
健康差异方面的基础和转化知识对于学生开发未来公平信息学解决方案的能力至关重要。基于我们的研究结果，我们为在信息学课程和能力中有意且必要地整合特定于健康差异的内容提供建议。
