ABSTRACT
Presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting, May 2005
Gender Differences in Pediatricians’ Perspectives Regarding
Community Child Health: Results from a National Survey
Cynthia
Minkovitz, MD, MPP 1, Anita Chandra, MPH 1, Andy Aligne, MD, MPH
2, Karen O'Connor 3, Holly Grason, MA 1 and Tom Tonniges, MD 3. 1 Population & Family
Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore,
MD, 21205; 2 PLC/CARE, University of Rochester, Rochester,
NY and 3 American Academy of Pediatrics, Elk Grove Village,
IL.
Background: Women comprise a growing proportion of the pediatric
workforce. Gender differences in perspectives toward community engagement
have been noted among trainees, but little is known about community child
health perspectives of pediatricians who have completed residency.
Objective: To assess whether there are gender differences
among pediatricians beyond residency regarding their perspectives about community
child health activities.
Design/Methods: National, random sample, mailed Periodic
Survey of American Academy of Pediatrics US members, 2004; 421 men and 459
women, response rate = 58%. Chi square statistics and ANOVA were used to measure
associations of gender with community involvement, perceived responsibility,
and strategies used to influence children’s health.
Results: Among men and women equally, 45% of pediatricians
were involved in community activities to promote children’s health and 76%
felt moderately or very (vs. little or not) responsible for improving child
health in their communities. More women than men found their current level
of involvement to be too little (68.8% vs. 54.8%, p<.01) and expected increasing
community work over the next 5 years (65.5% vs. 50.8%, p<.01). Among both
men and women, voting in local or state elections was selected as the most
often used strategy to influence child health in their local communities (69.5%).
Women and men used different additional strategies to influence child health
with more women reporting addressing parent, teacher or community groups and
more men reporting working as coalition members, educating legislators, communicating
with the media, and working with their local AAP chapter (all p<.05).
Conclusions: While perceiving equal responsibility for promoting
child health and reporting comparable current involvement, women report anticipating
greater involvement over the next 5 years. Gender sensitive strategies are
needed to enhance pediatricians’ skills and promote opportunities for both
men and women to engage in community child health activities.