Ending Race-Conscious College Admissions and Its Potential Impact on the Infectious Disease Workforce

Florence Momplaisir; Tanya Rogo; Ronika Alexander Parrish; Shirley Delair; Mona Rigaud; Virginia Caine; Judith Absalon; Bonnie Word; Dial Hewlett

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofae083

Ending Race-Conscious College Admissions and Its Potential Impact on the Infectious Disease Workforce

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2024 Feb 14;11(3):ofae083. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofae083. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Authors

Florence Momplaisir^{1

2}, Tanya Rogo³, Ronika Alexander Parrish⁴, Shirley Delair⁵, Mona Rigaud⁶, Virginia Caine⁷, Judith Absalon⁸, Bonnie Word⁹, Dial Hewlett¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
² The Penn Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
³ Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
⁴ Vaccines & Antivirals Medical and Scientific Affairs, Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals Group, New York, New York, USA.
⁵ Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
⁶ Department of Pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York, USA.
⁷ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
⁸ Infectious Diseases & Virology, Development Clinical Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical, New York, New York, USA.
⁹ Houston Travel Medicine Clinic, Houston, Texas, USA.
¹⁰ Tuberculosis Services, Westchester Department of Health, Chair IDSA Committee on Diversity Access & Equity, White Plains, New York, USA.

Abstract

On 29 June 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that race-conscious consideration for college admission is unconstitutional. We discuss the consequences of this ruling on the delivery of equitable care and health system readiness to combat current and emerging pandemics. We propose strategies to mitigate the negative impact of this ruling on diversifying the infectious disease (ID) workforce.

Keywords: health equity; infectious disease specialty; workforce diversity.