Survey finds higher inclusion engagement scores among underrepresented medical faculty

Faculty identified as underrepresented in medicine who served as diversity and inclusion leaders at U.S. academic medical centers had significantly higher inclusion engagement scores than their non-underrepresented peers in a cross-sectional study. The differences appeared in the overall Inclusion Engagement Score and in the domains of teaching, leadership, and community engagement. The study surveyed 300 faculty inclusion leaders between September 2023 and April 2025; 134 responded, representing 50 academic medical centers across 29 states and Washington, D.C., for a response rate of 44%. The results describe an association within the responding sample and do not establish causation.

Researchers developed the Inclusion Activity Scale, or IAS, to describe inclusion-related activities carried out by diversity and inclusion leaders across academic medical institutions in the United States. A total of 104 faculty inclusion activities were categorized into five domains: teaching and mentoring, clinical service, research and scholarly work, community engagement, and leadership. Activities were weighted according to their level of effort to produce domain-specific scores and a total Inclusion Engagement Score, or IES. The authors describe the IES as an exploratory summary measure derived from the IAS rather than a fully validated instrument.

The analysis found that faculty categorized as underrepresented in medicine recorded significantly higher total IES values than faculty who were not categorized as underrepresented. The same pattern occurred in the teaching, leadership, and community-engagement domains, but the reported abstract does not identify significant differences in the clinical-service or research-and-scholarly-work domains. The supplied findings do not provide numerical score differences, confidence intervals, effect sizes, or exact p-values, so the magnitude of the observed differences cannot be determined from the reported results.

The study was designed around a defined population: faculty who were diversity and inclusion leaders at academic medical centers. Respondents were drawn from institutions represented across 29 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., and included faculty associated with the Association of American Medical Colleges. The survey was sent to 300 eligible faculty, of whom 134 completed it. Because the participation rate was 44% and the sample was limited to faculty already holding inclusion leadership roles, the findings should not be generalized to all faculty, to individual institutions, or to academic medicine as a whole.

The motivation for measuring this work comes from the role inclusion activities may play in academic medicine. Promotion at academic medical centers commonly considers excellence in research, teaching, clinical skills, and leadership, while institutional mission statements also emphasize inclusion. The authors note that faculty involvement in inclusion activities is increasingly considered during promotion reviews. They also point to the disproportionate contributions of underrepresented faculty to these efforts, which motivates tools that can document such participation.

However, the new score has not yet been shown to measure promotion outcomes or institutional performance. The cross-sectional design captures reported activities during the survey period and cannot show that inclusion engagement increased over time or caused a particular promotion, retention, or institutional outcome. The source also does not establish that the IES is reliable or valid across institutions. Those questions remain central because the authors present the scale as a systematic catalog of inclusion-related work and the score as an exploratory measure. Further research is needed to test its validity and reliability and to determine how it may relate to academic promotion and the missions of academic medical centers.

Subject of Research: An exploratory survey measure of faculty inclusion-related activities at U.S. academic medical centers

Article Title: Capturing faculty inclusion activities in academic medicine: the inclusion activity scale and the inclusion engagement score

Article References: Mba, B., Cohen, I., Navarro, C., Elumn, J., Shaka, H., Olafimihan, A., Etienne, M., & Black, A. (2026). Capturing faculty inclusion activities in academic medicine: the inclusion activity scale and the inclusion engagement score. BMC Medical Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-026-10643-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-026-10643-7

Keywords: academic medicine, faculty inclusion, underrepresented faculty, diversity leadership, cross-sectional survey, inclusion engagement, academic promotion, medical education, Capturing, faculty, inclusion, activities