• Julia P Roulier and Jaeyun Sung.
• University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Batesville, AR.
• Fam Med. 2020 Oct 1; 52 (9): 661-664.

Background And ObjectivesBoth the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) and the American Academy of Family Physicians have developed strategic plans to increase the training of underrepresented minority in medicine (URMM) family physicians to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse patient population in the United States. This study examines data from the 2017 Council of Academic Family Medicine (CAFM) Educational Research Alliance (CERA) Program Directors (PD12) Survey to assess whether recruitment strategies increase the diversity of underrepresented minority physicians in family medicine.MethodsData were collected from an online electronic survey administered by the CERA of family medicine program directors in 2018. The data included specific questions about the diversity of URMM residents in family medicine programs and about initiatives that were used in their recruitment. We analyzed the data using the Pearson χ2 criteria for cause and effect of two variables.ResultsFamily medicine residency programs that have initiatives dedicated to increasing resident diversity have a higher percentage of URMM residents. Specifically, residency programs that have URMM recruitment strategies are 2.5 to 4 times more likely to have a diverse residency population than those programs without strategies (P<.001-.015).ConclusionsStriving to improve diversity in family medicine residency training in accordance with the ideals of STFM will require programs to design and implement initiatives to increase recruitment of URM residents.

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