Accurate racial/ethnic identity measurement is needed to understand the effectiveness of outreach, recruitment, and programs to support American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people becoming physicians.
To examine how changes in race/ethnicity data collection by the American Medical College Application System are associated with trends in applicants, matriculants, and graduates self-reporting as AIAN.
In this cohort study, interrupted time series regression was conducted using data from the American Medical College Application system identifying medical school applicants and graduates between January 1, 1996, and December 31, 2017, who identified as AIAN. The number of students identifying as AIAN was compared before and after the American Medical College Application System changed how it collected race/ethnicity data in 2002. Data analyses were conducted between December 2019 and May 2019.
Applicants could select only 1 racial identity from 1996 to 2001 and could select more than 1 racial identity from 2002 to 2017.
Rates of AIAN groups before and after changing how race/ethnicity data were collected. Covariates were age, sex, and Medical College Admission Test scores.
The total number of individuals identifying as AIAN in the study was 8361; the mean (SD) number of applicants per year was 380.0 (89.9) overall: 257.3 (39.6) in 1996 to 2001, with a mean (SD) age of 26.6 (5.5) years and 830 (54.0%) male individuals, and 426.1 (50.1) in 2002 to 2017, with a mean (SD) age of 25.5 (5.6) years and 3441 (50.5%) female individuals. Before the change, there was a decrease of 5% per year (relative rate [RR] of 0.95; 95% CI, 0.91-0.98; P?