Portrayals of African Americans in family medicine recruiting literature.

Abstract

Objective: To study portrayals of African Americans in family medicine recruiting literature on a quantitative basis.

Design: Survey.

Setting: Seventy six family medicine residency recruiting brochures, from programs responding to letters requesting "information and an application" for an unrelated study.

Main outcome measures: Numbers of African Americans portrayed as physicians, other health care professionals, patients, and other in recruiting brochures.

Results: Out 2433 individuals portrayed, African Americans accounted for 4.2% of physicians, 10.8% of other health care providers, and 17% of patients. Brochures from twenty three programs, containing photographs of 502 individuals portrayed no African Americans.

Conclusions: About one third of a sample of family practice program brochures sent to resident applicants in 1992 contained no photographs of African Americans. Implications for the recruitment of minorities to family medicine programs are discussed.