A Snapshot of Family Medicine Physician Engagement with State Policy: Findings from the 2023 CERA Survey.

Abstract

Background: Health care professionals are in a unique position to enact health-related social change. Medicine is subject to regulation at the organizational, local, state, and national levels. Federal laws apply to physicians throughout the US; as such, federal policy affects physician practice intentions similarly. However, there is little research on state-level engagement in the political process and none on the participation by family medicine physicians.

Methods: This article examines the nature of physician civic engagement at the state level. Data were gathered and analyzed as part of the 2023 Council of Academic Family Medicine's (CAFM) Educational Research Alliance (CERA) survey of Family Medicine educators and practicing physicians. We used nonparametric statistics (Kruskal-Wallis tests) to analyze ordinal variables. Categorical variables were analyzed using χ² tests. We used multivariable ordinal logistic regression to assess the joint effects of participant characteristics on study outcomes and to adjust for potential confounding.

Results: The policy question section of the survey received 709 responses, a response rate of 21%. Our results show a lack of civic engagement, including less than a third voting in state elections and only 4% making financial contributions to political campaigns. Seventeen percent of respondents reported considering relocating due to state health policies. For all questions, we observed variations by geographical region and gender.

Conclusions: Our findings provide a timely analysis of family medicine physician participation in the political process, the effect of specific health policies, and how these policies are comparatively received among family medicine physicians in the United States.