A Brief Online Implicit Bias Intervention for School Mental Health Clinicians

Does Implicit Racial Bias Affect Auditory-Perceptual Evaluations of Dysphonic Voices?

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to understand the role of implicit racial bias in auditory-perceptual evaluations of dysphonic voices by determining if a biasing effect exists for novice listeners in their auditory-perceptual ratings of Black and White speakers.

METHOD

Thirty speech-language pathology graduate students at Boston University listened to audio files of 20 Black speakers and 20 White speakers of General American English with voice disorders. Listeners rated the overall severity of dysphonia of each voice heard using a 100-unit visual analog scale and completed the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure their implicit racial bias.

RESULTS

Both Black and White speakers were rated as less severely dysphonic when their race was labeled as Black. No significant relationship was found between Harvard IAT scores and differences in severity ratings by race labeling condition.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest a minimizing bias in the evaluation of dysphonia for Black patients with voice disorders. These results contribute to the understanding of how a patient's race may impact their visit with a clinician. Further research is needed to determine the most effective interventions for implicit bias retraining and the additional ways that implicit racial bias impacts comprehensive voice evaluations.

Potential influence of nurses' implicit racial bias on maternal mortality

Stark disparities persist in maternal mortality and perinatal outcomes for Black and other birthing people of color, such as Native Americans, and their newborns compared to White people in the United States. An increasing body of research describes the phenomenon of implicit racial bias among providers and how it may affect communication, treatment decisions, the patient care experience, and health outcomes. This synthesis of literature reviews and distills current research on the presence and influence of implicit racial bias among nurses as it may relate to maternal and pregnancy-related care and outcomes. In this paper, we also summarize what is known about implicit racial bias among other types of healthcare providers and interventions that can mitigate its effects, identify a gap in research, and recommend next steps for nurses and nurse researchers.

An exploration of cultural competency training and genetic counselors' racial biases

Research shows genetic counselors generally have pro-White implicit biases-both prejudice and stereotyping. Cultural competency training aims to foster equitable beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes in cross-cultural genetic counseling sessions, including those that are racially discordant (genetic counselors and patients are from different racial backgrounds). Therefore, cultural competency training has the potential to mitigate bias and reduce disparities. Here, we report the prevalence of cultural competency training among genetic counselors and associations between recency of training and counselors' racial biases. We conducted an online survey of genetic counselors and trainees in fall 2021. The survey assessed four types of bias (implicit/explicit prejudice and implicit/explicit stereotyping), time since last cultural competency training, time since last communication skills training, and frequency of clinic sessions with Black patients. Multiple linear regressions modeled associations between cultural competency training and different types of bias, adjusting for communication skills training, frequency of encounters with Black patients, and counselor race (White vs. non-White). Two hundred fifteen participants (107 genetic counselors and 108 trainees) responded, and 205 reported whether they had prior cultural competency training. Of these, 187 (91%) reported ever having cultural competency training, most (53%) of participants who had training had it within 6 months prior to survey completion. We found no clear pattern of associations between cultural competency training and racial biases (implicit or explicit) in adjusted analyses. Participants who had cultural competency training four or more years prior demonstrated less negative implicit stereotyping toward Black individuals compared with those having more recent training; but no statistically significant effect was found for participants who reported never having cultural competency training, compared with those having training more recently than 4 years prior. Overall, our findings do not support that cultural competency training is negatively associated with, or mitigates, Black/White racial prejudices and stereotypes against Black patients. These findings suggest more effective interventions are needed to reduce racial biases.

How is physicians' implicit prejudice against the obese and mentally ill moderated by specialty and experience?

Background

Implicit prejudice can lead to disparities in treatment. The effects of specialty and experience on implicit obesity and mental illness prejudice had not been explored. The main objective was to examine how specializing in psychiatry/general medicine and years of experience moderated implicit obesity and mental illness prejudice among Swiss physicians. Secondary outcomes included examining the malleability of implicit bias via two video interventions and a condition of cognitive load, correlations of implicit bias with responses to a clinical vignette, and correlations with explicit prejudice.

Methods

In stage 1, participants completed an online questionnaire including a clinical vignette. In stage 2, implicit prejudice pre- and post- intervention was tested using a 4 × 4 between-subject design including a control group. In stage 3, explicit prejudice was tested with feeling thermometers and participants were debriefed. Participants were 133 psychiatrists and internists working in Geneva, hospital-based and private practice. Implicit prejudice was assessed using a Weight IAT (Implicit Association Test) and a Mental Illness IAT. Explicit feelings towards the obese and the mentally ill were measured using Feeling Thermometers. A clinical vignette assessed the level of concern felt for a fictional patient under four conditions: control, obese, depression, obese and depression. Linear regression was conducted to test for association of gender, experience, and specialty with responses to vignettes, pre-intervention IATs and explicit attitudes, and to test for association of interventions (or control) with post-intervention IATs and explicit attitudes. Reported effect sizes were computed using Cohen’s d. Two-tailed p < 0.05 was selected as the significance threshold.

Results

Compared to internists, psychiatrists showed significantly less implicit bias against mentally vs. physically ill people than internists and warmer explicit feelings towards the mentally ill. More experienced physicians displayed warmer explicit feelings towards the mentally ill and a greater level of concern for the fictional patients in the vignette than the less experienced, except when the patient was described as obese.

Conclusions

Specialty moderates both implicit and explicit mental illness prejudice. Experience moderates explicit mental illness bias and concern for patients. The effect of specialty on implicit prejudice seems to be based principally on self-selection.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12910-022-00815-7.