Barriers to Advancement: An Exploration of Frequency and Type of Microaggressions at a Health Sciences University

Microaggressions reflect brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights or insults to people from under-represented and marginalized populations (e.g. racial and ethnic minorities, women, and LGBTQI individuals) (Pierce, 1970; Sue, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, & Esquilin, 2007). Although subtle, these inequalities can have a cumulative and corrosive effect for underrepresented individuals seeking to advance within academic medicine. Thus, it is critical that microaggressions be addressed and removed to achieve a diverse and equitable workforce. However, to address these issues and help develop both systems-level and targeted approaches to remove their impact, health sciences universities must first obtain information about the prevalence and type of microaggressions experienced. We explore the frequency of microaggressions across three schools (medical, health professions, biomedical sciences) within a large health sciences university and explore the extent to which these microaggressions align with existing microaggression frameworks from the psychology literature.