Women's health issues : official publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health
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Womens Health Issues · Sep 2017
Observational StudyQuality and Content of Patient-Provider Communication About Contraception: Differences by Race/Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status.
Research in family planning has shown that contraceptive counseling has an influence on women's family planning outcomes, but also that women are often dissatisfied with the counseling they receive. Little is known about how contraceptive counseling is conducted in the United States. We describe both the content and interpersonal quality of provider communication during family planning visits, as well as assess whether disparities in counseling exist by patient race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. ⋯ Several deficiencies in contraceptive counseling were found, suggesting areas for further emphasis in training. Differences by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic states were not marked.
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Womens Health Issues · Sep 2017
Examining the Gap: Compensation Disparities between Male and Female Physician Assistants.
Compensation disparities between men and women have been problematic for decades, and there is considerable evidence that the gap cannot be entirely explained by nongender factors. The current study examined the compensation gap in the physician assistant (PA) profession. ⋯ There remain challenges to ensuring pay equality in the PA profession. Even when compensation-relevant factors such as experience, hours worked, specialty, postgraduate training, region, and call are controlled for, there is still a substantial gender disparity in PA compensation. Remedies that may address this pay inequality include raising awareness of compensation disparities, teaching effective negotiation skills, assisting employers as they develop equitable compensation plans, having less reliance on past salary in position negotiation, and professional associations advocating for policies that support equal wages and opportunities, regardless of personal characteristics.