Cultural audits: introduction, process, and results

The 2022 ADEA Climate Study in U.S. and Canadian Dental Schools and Allied Dental Programs: Methodological Considerations

January 28, 2025: This article published in Early View in error. This article is under embargo and will republish in April.

The status of climate studies in the United States and Canadian dental schools: Deans' perspectives

OBJECTIVES

Institutions with a positive cultural climate make community members from all backgrounds valued and included, and treated equitably. Such an environment is optimally suited to prepare future dentists well for leading a diverse team of staff members and addressing the oral health care needs of increasingly more diverse patient populations. The objectives were to assess how many United States and Canadian dental schools had participated in a climate study at their parent institution and/or had conducted their own climate study, which topics these studies had addressed, how they collected their data, from whom they collected data, and how the findings affected these academic units.

METHODS

In January 2020, 54 of the 78 dental school deans in the United States and Canada responded to a web-based survey (response rate: 69%).

RESULTS

Forty-six parent institutions (85%) and 27 dental schools (50%) had conducted climate studies. Eighty-seven percent of parent institutions assessed the climate overall and the climate for specific groups (70%), such as for persons from underrepresented minority backgrounds (67%) or different religious backgrounds (59%). Most parent institution and dental school studies utilized surveys to collect data from faculty (parent institutions: 76%/dental schools: 96%), staff (74%/93%), administrators (72%/93%), and students (72%/89%). Overall, climate study results positively affected parent institutions' and dental schools' humanistic environment (61%/63%) and the recruitment of faculty (46%/50%), students (46%/46%), and staff (41%/43%).

CONCLUSIONS

Climate studies are a widely accepted practice at dental schools and their parent institutions. Their results can play a vital role in shaping the climate of these academic units by fostering efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The social and learning environments experienced by underrepresented minority medical students: a narrative review

PURPOSE

To review the literature on the social and learning environments experienced by underrepresented minority (URM) medical students to determine what type of interventions are needed to eliminate potential barriers to enrolling and retaining URM students.

METHOD

The authors searched MEDLINE, PubMed, Ovid HealthStar, and Web of Science, and the reference lists of included studies, published between January 1, 1980, and September 15, 2012. Studies of the learning and social environments and of students' satisfaction, experiences with discrimination or unfair practices, and academic performance or progress, as well as assessments of programs or interventions to improve URM students' academic performance, were eligible for inclusion.

RESULTS

The authors identified 28 studies (27 unique data sets) meeting the inclusion criteria. The results of the included studies indicated that URM students experienced less supportive social and less positive learning environments, were subjected to discrimination and racial harassment, and were more likely to see their race as having a negative impact on their medical school experiences than non-URM students. Academic performance on standardized exams was worse, progress less timely, and attrition higher for URM students as well.

CONCLUSIONS

For URM students, an adverse climate may be decreasing the attractiveness of careers in medicine, impairing their academic performance, and increasing attrition. Improvements to the social and learning environments experienced by URM students are needed to make medicine a more inclusive profession. The current environment of health care reform creates an opportunity for institutions to implement strategies to achieve this goal.