Empowering equity: Striving for socio‐economic equity in the Aotearoa New Zealand health workforce

Abstract

Background The lack of diversity in the health workforce is partly due to selection criteria for health professional programmes that have not selected students from a wide range of backgrounds. Consequently, health care professionals from minority groups and lower socio‐economic backgrounds are under‐represented in the workforce. Approach The Socioeconomic Equity (EQ) support programme aims to increase the participation, retention and academic success of students from low socio‐economic communities studying in health professional programmes at the University of Otago. At the start of the academic year, students who had attended a secondary school from a low socio‐economic community were invited to take part in the EQ Programme. This includes group workshops on study skills, guidance from peer mentors, subject specific academic support, one‐on‐one course advice and pastoral support and activities to enhance self‐esteem and self‐efficacy. Evaluation Comparing the first two years of the EQ project with the previous year, there was an increase in the percentage of students from schools in low socio‐economic communities that passed HSFY. It was also found that more EQ students were offered places in health professional programmes than in the previous year. Implications The percentage of students passing HSFY has increased, and importantly, the percentage of students from low socio‐economic backgrounds entering professional health programmes has doubled. This is a small start to building a health workforce that fairly reflects people from all communities.