Racial Bias Among Emergency Providers: Strategies to Mitigate Its Adverse Effects

The Research to Practice column presents an analysis of current and controversial research findings with implications for practice change relevant to emergency care settings. This review critiques Johnson et al.'s (2016) investigation, titled "The Impact of Cognitive Stressors in the Emergency Department on Physician Implicit Racial Bias," that examined emergency department characteristics and stressors and their effects on physician racial bias and decision making. Their findings suggest that unconscious biases can affect clinical decisions when providers experience increased cognitive stress. The implications are significant for emergency providers as resources are especially strained during the COVID-19 pandemic and as the adverse effects of unconscious bias on health disparities and patient outcomes have become clearly apparent. Implicit bias training (IBT) is recommended for emergency providers and has significant implications for medical and nurse educators in executing and evaluating IBT outcomes.