• Kanisha Cruz-Kan, Brenden Dufault, Lula Fesehaye, Jodi Kornelsen, Carmen Hrymak, Shelly Zubert, Paul Ratana, Murdoch Leeies, and Disrupting Racism in Emergency Medicine (DRiEM) Investigators.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
• CJEM. 2023 Jul 1; 25 (7): 617626617-626.

IntroductionThe impact of racism on patient outcomes in Emergency Medicine has been examined but there have been few studies exploring the experiences of racism in health care workers. This survey aims to explore the experience of racism by interdisciplinary staff in a tertiary ED. By characterizing the staff experience of racism in the ED, we hope to inform the design of strategies to disrupt racism and ultimately improve the health and wellness of both staff and patients.MethodsWe conducted a self-administered, cross-sectional survey to explore the reported experience of racism by healthcare workers in a single urban ED in an academic trauma centre. We employed classification and regression tree analyses to evaluate predictors of racism through an intersectional lens.ResultsA majority (n = 200, 75%) of all ED staff reported experiencing interpersonal racism (including physical violence, direct verbal violence, mistreatment and/or microaggressions) in the workplace. Respondents who identified as racialized self-reported significantly more racism at work than white respondents (86% vs. 63%, p < 0.001). Occupation, race, migrant status and age were identified through intersectional machine-learning models to be significantly predictive of the experience of racism. Nearly all respondents felt that the disruption of racism in Emergency medicine is important to them (90%, n = 207) and (93%, n = 214) were willing to participate in further training in anti-racism.ConclusionsRacism against interdisciplinary staff working in EDs is common and the burden on healthcare workers is high. Intersections of occupation, race, age and migrant status are uniquely predictive of the experience of racism for EM staff. Interventions to disrupt racism should be informed by intersectional considerations to create a safe working environment and target populations most at risk. ED healthcare workers are willing to take steps to disrupt racism in their workplace and need institutional support to do so.© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP)/ Association Canadienne de Médecine d'Urgence (ACMU).

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