As part of our ongoing work on Fair Training Culture, today the UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH) has published a new report on differential attainment in the FPH Diplomate (DFPH) and Membership (MFPH) examinations. Executive summary available here.
In the UK, there is extensive evidence of inequities and bias in undergraduate and postgraduate examination outcomes for all medical specialties, across multiple intersecting demographic characteristics.
Understanding that public Health is a clinical specialty committed to reducing inequalities, and that our workforce must represent and reflect the diversity of the communities we serve, in 2022 the Faculty of Public Health launched the Fair Training Culture workstream to tackle inequalities across the public health career pathway.
The first phase of this project was a report to investigate differential attainment in recruitment to public health specialty training, produced by Imperial College London and commissioned by the Faculty of Public Health and the UK Recruitment Group of Health Education England. A detailed exploration of this report and the resulting action plan can be read in this joint blog between Faculty President Professor Kevin Fenton and Dr. David Chappel.
As well as actioning recommendations from the report to reduce disparities in recruitment to public health specialty training, the Faculty has now published the first output of the second phase of the Fair Training Culture Workstream, a new report on differential attainment in the Faculty’s postgraduate examinations.
This new report analyses ten years of national performance data for all DFPH and MFPH first attempts and finds that some demographic groups are significantly less likely to pass FPH examinations on the first attempt.
For the DFPH this includes candidates of increasing age, Black, Asian or White Other ethnicity, a professional background other than medicine, and candidates outside of UK public health specialty training, whilst for the MFPH this includes candidates of increasing age and Black or Asian ethnicity.
The report makes a total of 27 recommendations to be addressed by the Faculty of Public Health and other stakeholders, grouped under 7 categories;
- Leadership
- Improve data collection to better understand and monitor differential attainment in public health postgraduate examinations
- Understand the unique experiences of candidates from minoritised groups
- Inclusive assessment practices
- Inclusive working and learning environments
- Targeted assessment support and feedback
- Evaluation of implemented interventions
- The Faculty has established a Fair Exams Task and Finish Group to lead on the recommendations included in the report and support work to close the existing gaps in attainment.
Through our Fair Training Culture workstream we are committed to working transparently and in partnership with the wider public health system to address inequalities throughout the training pathway, and we will provide further updates as work on the second phase of the workstream continues.
As well as this work, and continuing work to address inequities in recruitment to public health specialty training, the Faculty will soon be launching the third phase of the Fair training work which will examine the training journey and data management.
If you would like to share reflections with the Faculty on the Fair Training Culture workstream and help shape our work to close attainment gaps you can do so via this survey.
