Underrepresentation of Filipino, Laotian, Cambodian, and Indonesians Among US Allopathic Medical Students

With increasing efforts to cultivate and foster a diverse physician workforce to improve the delivery of culturally responsive care, the accurate representation of Asian medical students continues to be obscured by aggregation of over 40 ethnic groups that are categorized as Asian race.

To describe representation of Asian ethnic groups among applicants and matriculants to US allopathic medical schools. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Cross-sectional study of applicant and matriculant data from 2020 to 2023, provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges, on self-reported Asian ethnic group and sex of medical school applicants and matriculants, compared with the American Community Survey population estimates of the typical medical school-aged population.

For each academic year, Asian ethnic group, and sex, the representation quotient (RQ), defined as the proportion of an ethnic group in the total population of medical school applicants or matriculants relative to the corresponding estimated proportion of that ethnic group in the US population, was calculated. We compared differences in applicant and matriculant RQs using t-tests for those with an RQ less than one.

Cambodian, Filipino, Indonesian, and Laotian applicants and matriculants were underrepresented in medicine with an RQ less than one. The RQ of Filipino females was lower than Filipino males among applicants and matriculants (p = 0.04 and 0.04, respectively). The RQ of Laotian and Filipino matriculants were lower than their respective applicant representation (p = 0.01 and 0.02, respectively).

With disaggregated race and ethnicity data, we found significant variation in representation of Asian ethnic groups among medical school applicants and matriculants relative to the US population. Aggregating Asians into a single racial group conceals a more nuanced picture of representation in medicine, hindering efforts for a diverse workforce and improved patient care.