ABMS News Release (12/03/24)

Member Boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) are taking a number of steps to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and ensure their certifying examinations are bias-free and that their continuing certification programs promote health equity. The majority of the Member Boards collect data on race, ethnicity, and gender. As Member Boards evaluate how to best use the demographic data they collect for DEI analyses of their certification exams, they are starting by identifying and eliminating inadvertent biases on oral and written exams. In addition, they are working to incorporate health equity content and conduct equity research on exam performance. The American Board of Pediatrics, for example, is conducting annual differential item functioning analyses and reviewing items highlighted in the Bias and Sensitivity Review to increase the board's understanding of the effect of language nuances and other characteristics on item performance in an effort to enhance guidelines for developing items going forward. The majority of Member Boards offer implicit bias training for item writers and examiners, and many have incorporated this training into item writing sessions or examiner orientation meetings. Some boards are also looking into having diverse subject matter experts review their exam material before publication. DEI content is now also frequently included in many Member Boards' continuing certification programs, with some routinely identifying disparities in healthcare processes and outcomes in their specialties and others reviewing national datasets of healthcare disparities and other literature to collect this data. Additionally, some boards include questions about healthcare disparities in their continuing certification assessments, and more are being developed for their item banks.

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