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A Strategy for Improving Health Disparities Education in Medicine

  • Innovations in Education
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Journal of General Internal Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

A health disparities curriculum that uses evidence-based knowledge rooted in pedagogic theory is needed to educate health care providers to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse U.S. population.

Description

The Health Disparities Education: Beyond Cultural Competency Precourse, along with its accompanying Train the Trainer Guide: Health Disparities Education (2008), developed by the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Disparities Task Force (DTF), is a comprehensive tool to facilitate developing, implementing and evaluating health disparities education. The curriculum includes five modules highlighting several fundamental concepts in health disparities, suggestions for teaching about health disparities in a wide range of settings and strategies for curriculum evaluation. The modules are Disparities Foundations, Teaching Disparities in the Clinical Setting, Disparities Beyond the Clinical Setting, Teaching about Disparities Through Community Involvement, and Curriculum Evaluation.

Evaluation

All five modules were delivered as a precourse at the 31st Annual SGIM Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA and received the “Best Precourse Award”. This award is given to the most highly rated precourse based on participant evaluations. The modules have also been adapted into a web-based guide that has been downloaded at least 59 times.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the modules are designed to develop a professional commitment to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care quality, promote an understanding of the role of health care providers in reducing health care disparities through comprehensive education and training, and provide a framework with which providers can address the causes of disparities in various educational settings.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for the initial phases of this work was provided by the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Council. Dr. C. Cené is supported through the UNC Clinical Translational Science Award-K12 Scholars Program (1KL2RR025746-01). Dr. A. Fernández is supported by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. Dr. M. Peek is supported through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (K23DK075006-04).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan, 2600 Green Rd Ste 150B, Ann Arbor, MI, 48105-5791, USA

    Paula T. Ross MA & Monica L. Lypson MD

  2. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Crystal Wiley Cené MD, MPH

  3. Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jada Bussey-Jones MD

  4. David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Arleen F. Brown MD, PhD & LuAnn Wilkerson EdD

  5. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Dionne Blackman MD, Susan B. Glick MD & Monica E. Peek MD, MPH

  6. University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Alicia Fernández MD

  7. Beth Israel Deconess Hospital, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Leonor Fernández MD

  8. Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Carol R. Horowitz MD, MPH

  9. Stroger Cook County Hospital, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

    Elizabeth A. Jacobs MD, MPP

Authors
  1. Paula T. Ross MA
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  2. Crystal Wiley Cené MD, MPH
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  3. Jada Bussey-Jones MD
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  4. Arleen F. Brown MD, PhD
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  5. Dionne Blackman MD
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  6. Alicia Fernández MD
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  7. Leonor Fernández MD
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  8. Susan B. Glick MD
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  9. Carol R. Horowitz MD, MPH
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  10. Elizabeth A. Jacobs MD, MPP
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  11. Monica E. Peek MD, MPH
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  12. LuAnn Wilkerson EdD
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  13. Monica L. Lypson MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Monica L. Lypson MD.

Additional information

On Behalf of the Society of General Internal Medicine Disparities Task Force

Dr. C. Cené is supported through the UNC Clinical Translational Science Award-K12 Scholars Program (1KL2RR025746-01).

Dr. A. Fernández is supported by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.

Dr. M. Peek is supported through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (K23DK075006-04).

Dr. A. Brown received support from the UCLA Resource Center in Minority Aging Research (#AG02004), the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (#P20MD00148), and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (# NL079240).

Dr. C. Horowitz received support from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R24 MD001691), the National Center for Research Resources (UL1RR029887) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention REACH-US (U58DP001010).

Dr. S. Glick is supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (K07HL081429).

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Ross, P.T., Wiley Cené, C., Bussey-Jones, J. et al. A Strategy for Improving Health Disparities Education in Medicine. J GEN INTERN MED 25 (Suppl 2), 160–163 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-010-1283-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-010-1283-3

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