Community Racial and Ethnic Representation among Physicians in US Internal Medicine Residency Programs

Abstract

Importance: Increasing underrepresented in medicine (URIM) physicians among historically underserved communities helps reduce health disparities. The concordance of URIM physicians with their communities improves access to care, particularly for American Indian and Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic or Latinx individuals. Objectives: To explore county-level racial and ethnic representation of US internal medicine (IM) residents, examine racial and ethnic concordance between residents and their communities, and assess whether representation varies by presence of academic institutions or underserved settings. Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective cross-sectional study collected data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), Area Health Resources Files, and US Department of Education data on ACGME-accredited US IM residency programs and their associated county populations. Self-reported racial and ethnic data from 2018 for 4848 residents in 393 IM programs in 205 counties were used. Data were analyzed between February 15 and September 20, 2024. Exposure: County-level presence for academic health centers (AHCs), minority-serving institutions (MSIs), health professional shortage areas (HPSAs), and rurality. Main Outcomes and Measures: Main outcomes were representation quotients (RQs) or the ratio of the proportion of IM residents and their concordant county-level racial and ethnic populations. Quantile linear regression models on median representation were used to identify the association with URIM, Asian, and White residents by US Census division and county-level AHCs, MSIs, HPSAs, and rurality. Results: Among 4848 residents, 4 (0.08%) self-identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native, 1709 (35.3%) as Asian, 289 (6.0%) as Black, 211 (4.4%) as Hispanic or Latinx, 2 (0.04%) as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and 2633 (54.3%) as White. A total of 761 (15.7%) were classified as URIM. Among URIM groups, American Indian and Alaska Native (mean [SE] RQ, 0.00 [0.04]), Black (mean [SE] RQ, 0.09 [0.20]), Hispanic and Latinx (mean [SE] RQ, 0.00 [0.04]), and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander (mean [SE] RQ, 0.00 [0.26]) residents were grossly underrepresented compared with their training sites' county-level representation. Fifty-one of 205 counties (24.8%) with IM programs had no URIM residents. Black and Hispanic or Latinx residents had higher representation in counties with more MSIs (mean [SD] RQ, 0.19 [0.24]; P =.04; mean [SD] RQ, 0.15 [0.04]; P