Raising Awareness about Health Disparities with a Medical and Dental School Web-Based Collaboration

Abstract

INTRODUCTION A collaborative web-based learning event for beginning medical and dental students was created to raise awareness about health disparities. METHODS Incoming medical and dental students completed an online assignment based upon real patient scenarios which addressed the following six topics: religion, sexual preference, socio-economic status, race, culture, and military veteran status, Students completed identical pre- and post- questionnaires approved by the West Virginia University Institutional Review Board. Questions were ranked on a 6-point Libert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree) or 5-point frequency scale (1 = never to 5= always). Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test, with p < 0.05 as significant RESULTS The pre- and post-questionnaires were completed by 45 dental students (94% response rate) and 118 (pre-) and 116 (post-) medical students with 98% and 97% respective response rates. Both dental and medical students had a significant increase in their awareness of health disparities. Dental students had a significant increase in their appreciation of the frequency of health disparities in state and country, while medical students had a significant increase in their agreement that learning events about diversity and inclusion should be threaded throughout the curriculum, and disparities are influenced by the quality of interpersonal health care. CONCLUSIONS Bringing attention to diverse patient populations in a web-based format as part of new student orientation is effective in introducing and enhancing medical and dental students' awareness of health disparities and under essentiality of diversity topics in.