Strategies for Increasing Equity in Dietetic Education Programs [abstract]

A pool of dietitians with a demographic makeup representative of the greater U.S. population will be necessary to provide competent care to an increasingly diverse U.S. population. Despite increased attention paid to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the accrediting body (ACEND), and numerous dietetics education programs (degree-granting programs, coordinated programs, dietetic internships, ISPPs, and Future Education Models), the demographic makeup of students in dietetics education programs does not appear to be shifting. Proposed reasons for the persistence of the lack of DEI center around institutional barriers to dietetics education programs such as inadequate financial aid, lack of mentorship, and poor awareness of DEI-encouraging policies, among others. Because the persistence of these barriers will prevent the dietetics profession from adapting to the pressures the field is seeing today, administrators of dietetics education programs should take strong steps to decrease the barriers to their students and interns. This proposed qualitative research study documents the shifts that have successfully and unsuccessfully facilitated equity in the past, illuminate discrepancies between administrator and student/intern perspectives, and provide practical resources and strategies for dietetics program administrators to encourage diversity and equity at their establishment. Particular attention will be given to novel approaches that programs have taken to provide financial support to their interns and students, low-input high-value interventions that can enable change immediately, and establishing policies that will demonstrably promote DEI for the future of dietetics.

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