An Evaluation of the Presence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Information on Plastic Surgery Residency Program Websites

Abstract

Background Increasing the diversity of plastic surgery trainees is an important step in providing optimal care for our increasingly diverse patient populations. Given that information presented on residency programs' websites can strongly influence applicants' decisions to apply to or rank a program, demonstrating a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on program websites may aid in recruiting applicants with URM background. Methods Using 8 DEI-related criteria, we evaluated the websites of 103 plastic surgery residency programs for the presence of DEI-related content during the month of June 2022. Each program was evaluated by 2 individual graders. We analyzed the data with confirmatory factor analysis in R using the Lavaan package. Results On average, programs fulfilled 2.1 ± 1.6 of the metrics with a range of 0–7 fulfilled per program. Our model revealed that the criteria were a high-quality (P < 0.0001) measure of DEI-related metrics. There was a significant association between program size and presence of DEI-related criteria (linear 0.039; quadratic −0.005; both P < 0.01), such that mid-sized programs (16–18 residents) had the highest quality of DEI advertising compared to both small and large programs. Programs associated with a USNWR Top 20 Hospital were less likely to achieve high level of DEI-related criteria than other programs (P < 0.0001). Conclusion Mid-sized programs had greater DEI quality on their websites, while smaller and larger programs similarly had poorer assessed quality. There is room for all programs to improve the presence of DEI-related material on their websites, especially related to care of transgender populations.