Latina Women in the U.S. Physician Workforce: Opportunities in the Pursuit of Health Equity

Abstract

PURPOSE: Some progress has been made in gender diversity in undergraduate medical education and the physician workforce, but much remains to be done to improve workforce disparities for women, particularly women from underrepresented populations, such as Latinas. This study examines the current level of representation and demographic characteristics of Latina physicians, including age, language use, nativity, and citizenship status. METHOD: The authors used data from the 2014-2018 U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates for their analyses. During the time period covered by this analysis, ACS response rates ranged from 92.0% to 96.7%. The authors included in this study individuals who self-reported their occupation as physician and who self-identified their race/ethnicity as either non-Hispanic White (NHW) or Hispanic/Latino, regardless of race. The authors used person-level sampling weights provided by the ACS to convert the original 1% sample to a 100% enumeration of the population. RESULTS: According to the ACS 2014-2018 5-year estimates, NHW physicians make up 65.8% (660,031/1,002,527) of physicians in the United States. Women comprise 36.1% (361,442) of the total U.S. physician population; however, Hispanic/Latina women comprise only 2.4% (24,411). The female physician population is younger than the male physician population, and Hispanic female physicians are the youngest. Latina physicians are far more likely to speak Spanish at home than NHW physicians. Immigrants make up 40.1% (9,782/24,411) of the Hispanic female physician population, and 12.3% (3,012/24,411) of Hispanic female physicians are not U.S. citizens. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that Latina physicians in the United States are younger, more likely to be bilingual and speak Spanish at home, and very underrepresented, compared with NHW female and male physicians. Increasing their share of the U.S. physician workforce would benefit the pursuit of health equity for an ever more diverse population.

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