School of Clinical and Rehabilitation Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Family Medicine, MEDEX Northwest, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
BMC Med Educ. 2023 Jul 18;23(1):514. doi: 10.1186/s12909-023-04500-0.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the US population benefits from access to healthcare providers from similarly diverse backgrounds. Physician assistant (PA) education programs have striven to increase the diversity of the profession, which is predominantly non-Hispanic white, by focusing on admitting students from historically excluded populations. However, strategies such as holistic admissions are predicated on the existence of racially and ethnically diverse applicant pools. While studies have examined correlates of matriculation into a medical education program, this study looks earlier in the pipeline and investigates whether applicant - not matriculant - pool diversity varies among PA programs with different characteristics.
Data were drawn from the 2017-2018 Central Application Service for PAs admissions cycle. Applications to programs with pre-professional tracks and applicants missing race/ethnicity data were excluded, resulting in data from 26,600 individuals who applied to 189 PA programs. We summarized the racial and ethnic diversity of each program's applicant pools using: [1]the proportion of underrepresented minority (URM) students, [2]the proportion of students with backgrounds underrepresented in medicine (URiM), and [3]Simpson's diversity index of a 7-category race/ethnicity combination. We used multiple regressions to model each diversity metric as a function of program characteristics including class size, accreditation status, type of institution, and other important features.
Regardless of the demographic diversity metric examined, we found that applicant diversity was higher among provisionally accredited programs and those receiving more applications. We also identified trends suggesting that programs in more metropolitan areas were able to attract more diverse applicants. Programs that did not require the GRE were also able to attract more diverse applicants when considering the URM and SDI metrics, though results for URiM were not statistically significant.
Our findings provide insights into modifiable (e.g., GRE requirement) and non-modifiable (e.g., provisionally accredited) program characteristics that are associated with more demographically diverse applicant pools.
许多研究表明，美国人口的族裔多样性不断增加，这得益于能够获得来自背景相似的医疗保健提供者的服务。医师助理 (PA) 教育计划一直致力于通过专注于招收来自历史上被排斥的人群的学生来增加该专业的多样性，该专业主要是非西班牙裔白人。然而，整体招生等策略是以存在不同族裔和种族的申请人群体为前提的。虽然有研究考察了进入医学教育项目的相关因素，但本研究着眼于更早的阶段，调查了不同特征的 PA 项目的申请人（而非被录取者）群体的多样性是否存在差异。
数据来自 2017-2018 年中央医师助理招生服务申请周期。排除了有预科轨道的项目和申请人缺少种族/族裔数据的申请，这导致了来自 26600 名申请 189 个 PA 项目的个人的数据。我们使用以下方法总结了每个项目申请人群体的种族和族裔多样性：[1]代表性不足少数族裔（URM）学生的比例，[2]在医学领域代表性不足的学生比例（URiM），以及[3]7 类种族/族裔组合的辛普森多样性指数。我们使用多元回归模型将每个多样性指标作为函数来建模，这些函数的自变量包括班级规模、认证状态、机构类型和其他重要特征。
无论使用哪种人口多样性指标进行检查，我们都发现，临时认证的项目和收到更多申请的项目的申请人多样性更高。我们还发现了一些趋势，表明位于大都市区的项目能够吸引更多不同族裔的申请人。在考虑 URM 和 SDI 指标时，不要求 GRE 的项目也能够吸引更多不同族裔的申请人，尽管对于 URiM 来说结果并不具有统计学意义。
我们的研究结果提供了一些见解，即与更多人口统计学上多样化的申请人群体相关的是可改变的（例如，GRE 要求）和不可改变的（例如，临时认证）项目特征。
