Systematic Approach to Promoting Healthcare Equity through Resident Education (SPHERE)
Project Summary
This project is exploring multiple aspects of how healthcare disparities and social determinants of health are measured, formally taught by faculty, and understood by primary care residents in internal medicine and family medicine.
SPHERE Project
There is a large body of public health research demonstrating that social conditions have a large influence on health and disease. Furthermore, social conditions that threaten health are more prevalent among racial/ethnic minorities and those living in socioeconomically deprived communities. While these facts are clearly established, best practices for teaching primary care residents about these topics are not. In the SPHERE project, we are collecting data to inform best practices for teaching primary care residents about the social determinants of health. Through our literature review and survey of residency program directors across the country, we have identified that there is a lack of consensus about what framework to use when developing curricula on social determinants of health or how to evaluate resident competency. We aim to develop and test curricular approaches to primary care residency training that will be useful to programs across the country and advance the field of resident education.
Supporting Literature
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8. Association of American Medical Colleges. Behavioral and Social Science Foundations for Future Physicians. Report of the Behavioural and Social Science Expert Panel. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges; 2011. Available from: https://www.aamc.org/download/271020/data/behavioralandsocialsciencefoundationsfor¬futurephysicians.pdf. Accessed August 8, 2014.
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