Meeting People Where They Are in the Fight Against COVID-19 and Its Complications.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated socioeconomic and racial disparities. Because of the institution's commitment to health equity, Morehouse School of Medicine, one of four Historically Black College and University (HBCU) medical schools, took the leadership role in addressing disparities by becoming a community vaccination provider. With vaccines registered, ordered, and received from the Georgia Department of Public Health through the mobile community vaccine initiative, the Medical School vaccinated more than 2700 people in the metropolitan Atlanta area. The initiative took place from January 2021, shortly after the COVID-19 vaccines were initially released, until April 2022 when vaccinations became part of routine health maintenance and preventive health measures at the school. Eighty-six percent of the individuals vaccinated were African American or Hispanic/Latino. Our efforts highlighted the importance of addressing vaccine access barriers and providing culturally sensitive care. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 15, 2024:e1-e4. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307768).

An Evaluation of the Presence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Information on Plastic Surgery Residency Program Websites.

BACKGROUND: Increasing the diversity of plastic surgery trainees is an important step in providing optimal care for our increasingly diverse patient populations. Given that information presented on residency programs' websites can strongly influence applicants' decisions to apply to or rank a program, demonstrating a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on program websites may aid in recruiting applicants with URM background. METHODS: Using 8 DEI-related criteria, we evaluated the websites of 103 plastic surgery residency programs for the presence of DEI-related content during the month of June 2022. Each program was evaluated by 2 individual graders. We analyzed the data with confirmatory factor analysis in R using the Lavaan package. RESULTS: On average, programs fulfilled 2.1 ± 1.6 of the metrics with a range of 0-7 fulfilled per program. Our model revealed that the criteria were a high-quality (P < 0.0001) measure of DEI-related metrics. There was a significant association between program size and presence of DEI-related criteria (linear 0.039; quadratic -0.005; both P < 0.01), such that mid-sized programs (16-18 residents) had the highest quality of DEI advertising compared to both small and large programs. Programs associated with a USNWR Top 20 Hospital were less likely to achieve high level of DEI-related criteria than other programs (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Mid-sized programs had greater DEI quality on their websites, while smaller and larger programs similarly had poorer assessed quality. There is room for all programs to improve the presence of DEI-related material on their websites, especially related to care of transgender populations.

Pathways to Medicine.

Early exposure to health careers has the potential to improve diversity in the health professional workforce and reduce health provider shortages in Rhode Island and across the United States. Rhode Island alone has 13 federally designated Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas (PCHPSA) and 12 Medically Underserved Areas (MUA). To help increase healthcare access for individuals residing in these areas and promote diversity within the RI health workforce, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University established and/or supports multiple pathway programs to provide early health career exposure to students. This approach empowers and supports students from various backgrounds to see themselves as future healthcare professionals. These programs work to create a more well-rounded healthcare workforce equipped to serve the state's diverse patient population.