Current problems in pediatric and adolescent health care
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Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care · Feb 2019
ReviewImplicit Bias: What Every Pediatrician Should Know About the Effect of Bias on Health and Future Directions.
Implicit bias has entered modern discourse as a result of our current sociopolitical climate. It is an area that has been largely explored in the social sciences, and was highlighted in the landmark 2003 IOM report, Unequal Treatment, as a contributor to racial/ethnic health disparities. Implicit bias is the process of unconscious societal attitudes affecting our individual understanding, actions and decisions, thus leading to assumptions about groups. ⋯ Implicit biases can be unlearned via debiasing strategies, but these have not been examined extensively amongst health care providers. Future research must rely on more than pre- and post-IAT measurements to examine the effect of these strategies on improving patient outcomes. Additionally, healthcare system leadership must prioritize implicit bias trainings for students and medical staff and make greater tangible efforts to improve workforce diversity as a debiasing strategy.