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Understanding and addressing sexual harassment in academic medicine
Understanding and addressing sexual harassment in academic medicine
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Lautenberger, Diana M., author
Dandar, Valerie M., author
Zhou, You, (Of University of Minnesota), author - Contributor(s):
- Association of American Medical Colleges, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : Association of American Medical Colleges, July 2022
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Academic Medical Centers
Sexual Harassment -- prevention & control
Sexual Harassment -- statistics & numerical data
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Academic medicine, like most industries, has a sexual harassment problem. A variety of events since #MeToo started in 2006, up to academic medicine's own reckoning in recent years, has provided much-needed data, frameworks, and foundational understanding of sexual, including gender, harassment that bolstered existing and initiated new anti-harassment efforts. Yet, with the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as with the much-needed outcry over racial injustice and equity, focus on harassment efforts has waned. While these crises demand immediate action, they also demand an understanding of how many equity and justice issues are interconnected. Sexual harassment should be seen as one of the critical issues to resolve as part of addressing equity and inclusion writ large. Our attention must be focused on harassment now more than ever, as rates and experiences of harassment may have gone unchecked and unreported for more than two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic institutions must be bold and brave in eliminating harassment by addressing the foundational cultural traits at their institutions that continue to allow it to persist, such as tolerance for harmful behavior, acts of retribution, rigid hierarchy, and dominating behavior, often by men. This report presents a unique opportunity to achieve two goals: (1) to share a new multi-institutional analysis of the prevalence and experiences of sexual harassment, with a focus on gender harassment, among U.S. medical school faculty in the workplace and (2) to highlight institutional practices to prevent and address harassment in the context of those experiences. We chose to focus on these goals because gender harassment is the most common harassment experience, several reports have recommended it receive further study,1-3 and medical school faculty are an underassessed community. High-level analysis of the 2019-2021 AAMC StandPoint™ Faculty Engagement Survey data featured in this report showed that 22% of all faculty and 34% of women faculty experienced sexual harassment. The highest rates of harassment among women faculty were in departments of anesthesiology and emergency medicine, and the lowest were in urology and radiology. Rates among faculty groups varied by gender, race/ethnicity, department, and age. Notably, even for departments with a majority of women, such as pediatrics and OB-GYN, rates of harassment were similar to the overall average of 34%. Faculty of all genders who experienced harassment were less engaged, less satisfied with their medical school as a place to work, and less likely to stay at their institution, according to data analyzed for this report. Interviews conducted with leaders from nine medical schools gathered innovative practices across four areas: evaluation and assessment, prevention and education, support for perpetrators and targets, and transparency and accountability. Leaders shared many approaches to addressing and preventing harassment that others can readily adopt, including taking a coordinated cross-institutional approach, involving leaders in accountability, and addressing repeat offenders and less overt, though still harmful, behaviors, such as using potentially patronizing language or commenting on a person’s appearance, through proportionate responses. The data presented in this report suggest that to drive and support retention, performance, and organizational excellence, medical schools must address sexual harassment and prevent it before it happens. The findings from the institutional interviews provide useful strategies for building cultures of prevention and inclusion in which anti-harassment efforts are integrated throughout institutional operating policies and procedures; are part of the institution’s larger diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy; and reinforce accountability for all members of the community, including leadership.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (v, 86 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918504889006676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918504889006676