115 - Antiracist Curriculum Implementation for Pediatric Residents

Poster Number: 115
Publication Number: 115.216

Nicholas Szoko, UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Braveen Ragunanthan, Delta Health Center, Inc., Cleveland, MS, United States; Ana Radovic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Jessica Garrison, PHM, Allison Park, PA, United States; Orquidia Torres, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Background: Racism negatively impacts child and adolescent health. Many residencies incorporate education on implicit bias or social determinants of health, but few have antiracist curricula.

Objective: We sought to implement a longitudinal antiracist curriculum among pediatric residents to increase antiracist awareness, knowledge, clinical skills, and advocacy behaviors.

Design/Methods: Our curriculum was administered over one year to pediatric residents at a large academic medical center. Seven hour-long sessions were offered during structured educational time. The first session introduced the curriculum. Subsequent sessions addressed key conceptual domains: schools, healthcare, justice system, employment, and housing/transportation. The final session reviewed key concepts and incorporated case-based discussions. We administered pre- and post- surveys to assess changes in awareness, knowledge, clinical skills, and advocacy behaviors among participants. Awareness was assessed with 27 Likert-type items spanning general antiracist awareness and the five conceptual domains. We evaluated knowledge with 18 true/false or multiple choice questions about inequities across conceptual domains. Participants indicated comfort with self-reported clinical skills using 13 Likert-type items drawn from national toolkits and policy statements. Individual and institutional advocacy behaviors were measured with 14 Likert-type items derived from the Antiracism Behavioral Inventory. Participant demographics were summarized with descriptive statistics. McNemar or paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to compare measures before and after curriculum implementation.

Results: 79 individuals completed pre-surveys, 47 completed post-surveys, and 37 were eligible for matching across time points (Table 1). Mean age was 28.3 years (SD: 1.8). 78% were female, and most were earlier in training. The majority (68%) of residents identified as White. We found significant increases in awareness across several conceptual domains (schools: p=0.027; healthcare: p=0.004; employment: p=0.003; housing/transportation: p=0.030) (Table 2). Mean knowledge score increased after implementation (p=0.030). Self-reported clinical skills improved significantly (p < 0.001). Individual advocacy behaviors increased (p < 0.001), but there were no changes in institutional advocacy.Conclusion(s): We demonstrate significant increases in antiracist awareness, knowledge, and self-reported clinical skills with a novel antiracist curriculum. There were no changes in institutional advocacy, highlighting the importance of cultivating such behaviors during residency training.
Table 1Demographic Characteristics of Participants (Baseline)
Table 2Comparison of Measures Before and After Curriculum Implementation