Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Baton Rouge, LA
Healthcare Disparities Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors in Resident Physicians

Background: Effective population health interventions must be grounded in the specific needs of the communities being served. Medical residents in community clinics have great potential to be the primary drivers of these interventions, as they have direct contact with a large number of community members on a regular basis. These residents may not have sufficient knowledge of population health issues to fulfill this role, partly because many residents are not native to the communities they serve. This project was designed to provide both an educational and a behavioral intervention to lay the educational foundations for the future development of targeted population health interventions.

Methods: Phase 1 of our 2-phase project involved a didactic session on health disparities, and phase 2 was a behavioral intervention in which residents were tasked with asking their clinic patients at least 3 resident-selected questions related to health disparities. Objective and subjective knowledge, importance, and learning along with behavioral changes were measured throughout the phases. Prior to the didactic session, residents completed the Learner’s Needs Assessment Survey to measure their perceived and actual knowledge of underserved patient population topics. One month after the didactic session, the residents were resurveyed to measure changes in perception/knowledge and were asked to complete a self-assessment survey. Postintervention, the residents began asking the interview questions in their respective clinics and once again completed the Learner’s Needs Assessment Survey to measure changes in perceived and actual knowledge of underserved patient population topics.

Results: After the first didactic intervention, 38%/27% of residents reported more subjective knowledge/subjective importance, respectively, while 68.7% reported knowing more about their patients and 55.6% said that the first didactic session changed their treatment plan. After phase 2, 31.2%/20.2% reported more subjective knowledge/subjective importance, respectively, and 41% reported knowing more about their patients.

Conclusion: Our general and specific knowledge results revealed large deficits in our residents’ knowledge about healthcare disparities in their patient population. While both interventions showed at least some gain in resident knowledge or change in resident attitude, the didactic phase appeared to be more effective. Overall, the success of our interventions was directly related to buy-in and participation from faculty and resident champions.