Institutional characteristics, faculty rank and URM faculty representation

Introduction

It has been well documented that underrepresented faculty in academic medicine are concentrated in lower faculty ranks than their well represented counterparts. This promotion disparity has resulted in concerted efforts by medical institutions to change academic culture and climate surrounding this group. This study provides a more detailed characterization of minority faculty underrepresentation, evaluating longitudinal trends in faculty rank among US medical schools looking particularly at academic rank, region, ownership, institution type, social mission score and research intensity ranking.

Materials and Methods

Using data from the AAMC Faculty Roster, AAMC Organizational database, and Mullan et al.’s social mission score, multiple adjusted Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) models were constructed to evaluate trends in faculty number by race/ethnicity, academic rank, and specific institutional characteristics as noted above.

Results and Discussion

Compared to URM faculty in the South, the change rate of URM faculty is higher by 1.7 % in the West. At the Instructor rank, there are increased rates of change for all racial groups in the West when compared to the South by 6.3 % for Asian faculty, 5.1 % for White faculty, and 5 % for URM faculty. URM faculty at HBCUs at the Instructor level have decreased rates of change by 4.9 % as compared to predominantly white institutions. URM Professor rank faculty at private institutions showed significant increased rates of change of 1.7 % as compared to public institutions. URM faculty at the Professor rank had a decreased rate of 1.4 % at schools with high social mission score compared to low social mission scores.

Implications

There are differences in overall URM faculty trends based on region, ownership, institution type, social mission score and research intensity ranking. All institutional characteristics showed different effects on URM faculty at specific academic ranks and the reasons for these differences need further study to be more fully understood.