A national survey of dental hygiene faculty perspectives on diversity, equity, and inclusion

Purpose/objectivesTo investigate potential unconscious bias among dental hygiene educators and identify baseline perceptions of race and racism. MethodsDental hygiene programs in the USA were clustered into 4 geographic regions from which 2 programs were sampled from each region. The 20-item, Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS) electronic survey was sent to educators from each of the selected programs in 2022. The CoBRAS instrument measures contemporary racism and stereotyping in 3 subcategories: Unawareness of Racial Privilege, Institutional Discrimination, and Blatant Racial Issues. Scores range from 20-120, with higher scores indicating elevated levels of denial of racism. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA were performed. The level of significance was set to alpha = 0.05. ResultsOf the 172 potential respondents, 89 (52%) completed all of the survey questions. The majority of the respondents were White, female and from the Northeast (74.2%, 93.3%, and 61.8% respectively). The mean CoBRAS score (55.73) indicated moderate levels of color-blind racial attitudes. Race was a significant variable in perceptions of racial dynamics and racism with statistically significant differences between groups by race and ethnicity as demonstrated by one-way ANOVA (F[6,82] = 3.469, p = 0.004). ConclusionsModerate levels of color-blind racial attitudes among dental hygiene educators were found, indicating a presence of cognitive aspects of stereotyping related to race. The demographic data collected adds to the existing evidence of a lack of diversity among dental hygiene faculty.