Assessing Trends in Practice Demographics of Underrepresented Minority Pediatricians, 1993–2007

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether underrepresented minority (URM) pediatricians serve minority and/or publicly insured or uninsured children to a greater degree than non-URM pediatricians, and to evaluate trends in these relationships.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Respondents to American Academy of Pediatrics surveys in 1993, 2000, and 2007, provided their race/ethnicity, practice locations, and estimated race/ethnicity and insurance sources of their patient panels. We classified pediatricians by race/ethnicity as either URM (black, Hispanic, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or American Indian/Alaskan Native) or non-URM (white, non-Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or other). We compared the average percentages of minority individuals (excluding Asians) in the patient panels of URM and non-URM pediatricians, and compared the average percentages of publicly insured (includes TRICARE) or uninsured patients.

RESULTS: Response rates were >50% for all surveys. There were 1003 (10.2% URM) postresidency respondents in 1993, 707 (11.8% URM) in 2000, and 900 (11.1% URM) in 2007. In all 3 surveys, the average percentage of minority children in URM pediatricians' patient panels was higher than for non-URM pediatricians by approximately 20 percentage points (all P < .001). The differences in the percentages of patients who were either publicly insured or uninsured widened over the study period, from 46% in URM pediatric practices versus 38.8% in non-URM practices in 1993 to 59.7% vs 40.7%, respectively, in 2007 (P < .001). In multivariable analyses, URM pediatricians' patient panels had a higher mean percentage of minorities (15.2 percentage points greater; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 12.1–18.4) and a higher mean percentage of publicly insured and uninsured patients (10.9 percentage points greater; 95% CI: 6.7–15.4) compared with non-URM pediatricians' patient panels.

CONCLUSIONS: Over the last 14 years, URM pediatricians were more likely than their non-URM peers to care for minority children and publicly insured or uninsured patients. This relationship has not appeared to attenuate over time, and these data support ongoing and enhanced efforts to recruit qualified URMs into pediatric careers to meet the growing needs of the expanding minority child population.