Overcoming the triple threat to diversity in the health science workforce: empowering the next gen.

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Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Fields Parent Project: 1. ABSTRACT OF FUNDED PARENT RESEARCH Interventions to enhance the pool of underrepresented minority (URM) groups in the research workforce, including Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds are needed to sustain the training and transition into research careers for these groups. In the proposed project, we will address and mitigate three career threats for biomedical and behavioral researchers-in-training (the “Triple Threat”)— perceived discrimination, fixed ability mindset, and impostor feelings —that may harm trainees’ career motivation and retention, via interventions aimed at trainees and their mentors. A key aspect of our project is that we not only address the Triple Threat in trainees, but also address the Triple Threat in their mentors, who critically shape the environment in which the trainees learn and work. Both interventions will involve <3.5 hour synchronous and interactive virtual workshops that introduce the Triple Threat, provide example strategies that trainees/mentors can use to mitigate the Triple Threat, and have trainees/mentors adapt strategies and/or generate new strategies that they can consistently use over time. We will recruit 140 mentors (and 420 of their trainees) with the help of Site Partners from six leading institutions around the country. Trainees and mentors will be cluster randomized to either treatment (Triple Threat Intervention) or active control group, and will take measures of key variables pre- and post-intervention, and annually until funding ends. These key measures include, for trainees, their experiences of the Triple Threat, career threat coping skills, career motivation (research self-efficacy, scientist identity, expectancy beliefs, and values), and career outcomes (intentions and steps taken to pursue research paths, behaviors/products); and, for mentors, their awareness of the Triple Threat and use of specific strategies (both inclusive and supportive) to mitigate it. Using multilevel modeling, growth models, multigroup SEM, and repeated measures MANOVA, we will evaluate the effects of the two interventions on short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes, and whether the interventions have stronger effects for URM trainees. We expect to find, in line with theoretical predictions, that trainees who receive the intervention will report decreased experience of the Triple Threat, and increased coping skills, career motivation, and career outcomes, compared to trainees in the control condition; that mentors who receive the intervention will report stronger engagement in behaviors/practices to mitigate the Triple Threat than mentors in the control condition; and that trainees who receive the intervention and who also have mentors who received the intervention will experience the most positive outcomes. We also expect that the intervention may be most beneficial to URM students, as well as students from multiple URM categories. These interventions, designed to be scalable and adaptable, will be taught to be delivered by training program directors at our Site Partner institutions, enhancing intervention sustainability and dissemination over time.