(1085) Progress on Representation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Content on Doctor of Pharmacy Program Websites

Objectives: Promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are needed in Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) programs for developing practitioners prepared to provide patient-centered care to increasingly diverse populations. DEI is characterized as policies, programs, resources, and statements that promote the representation and participation of different groups of individuals, including people of different ages, races and ethnicities, abilities and disabilities, genders, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations. In 2016 the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education issued recommendations to implement DEI into Pharm.D. programs. One way to highlight these efforts is through program websites which reach not only current students, faculty, and staff but prospective students and employees who may be looking for programs which share their DEI values. However, research regarding access to DEI content and resources within pharmacy school program websites is limited. The study objective is to broadly describe the DEI content on websites of Pharm.D. programs in the United States (U.S.) and how this changed from 2022-2023.

Methods: This study utilized a cross-sectional design with a structured website review to characterize and describe DEI content on the program websites of fully-accredited Pharm.D. programs in the U.S. The study was conducted during two time periods: 1) December 2021 to February 2022 (“2022”) and 2) January 2023 to August 2023 (“2023”). In 2022, information was collected about the presence of DEI content (present or not present), number of clicks to reach DEI content from the program homepage, program type (public or private), and geographic location (Northeast, South, West, Midwest). In 2023, the same information was collected in addition to both program-level and institution-level DEI content as identified in the published literature: gender diverse media, race diverse media, non-discrimination statement, diversity statement, financial resources, academic resources, diversity plan, faculty/student images and faculty/student biographies. Data was analyzed descriptively with frequency counts and percentages and compared across demographics using chi-square tests. Chi-square tests were used to compare presence of DEI content across years. All tests used a significance level of p≤0.05.

Results: In 2023, there were 140 fully-accredited U.S. Pharm.D. programs (compared to 138 in 2022). In 2022, half of the pharmacy programs (n=69) had any type of DEI content on their program website, which significantly increased to 68.1% (n=94) in 2023 (p <.001). In 2022, the mean number of clicks to reach DEI content was 2.04±0.72 which was statistically similar in 2023 (2.11±0.84). In 2022, there was no statistically significant difference between public programs (n=40, 58.0%) and private programs (n=29, 42.0%) regarding DEI content (p=.061). However, in 2023, there were significantly more public programs (n=53, 76.8%) with DEI website content compared to private programs (n=41, 57.7%) (p=.016). In 2022, there was a statistically significant difference between public programs (n=21, 52.5%) and private programs (n=3, 10.3%) who had a dedicated pharmacy program DEI group (p <.001). This difference was flipped for public programs (n=17, 42.5%) and private programs (n=26, 89.7%) with a dedicated university DEI group (p <.001). In 2023, these differences were similar. Less than half of public programs (n=24, 45.3%) compared to five private programs (12.2%) had a dedicated pharmacy program DEI group (p <.001). Nineteen public programs (35.8%) compared to 28 private programs (68.3%) had a dedicated university level DEI group (p=.002).

Conclusions: Websites are public-facing portals for representing the values of a pharmacy program. Pharmacy programs have made significant strides in one year regarding representation of DEI content on their websites. This study did not assess reasons for differences in content by program demographics, so future research should explore this further and identify ways to mitigate these differences. Additionally, more focus must be placed on the optimal ways to organize and present DEI content.