Evaluation of race and gender sensitivity in the American Heart Association materials for Advanced Cardiac Life Support

Background: Given the race and gender disparities in cardiac care for women and minorities, it is important to evaluate how we teach in this content area, because it may influence this bias.Objective: We assessed the American Heart Association's Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) materials, published in 2006, for examples of race and gender sensitivity that depicted culturally competent health education.Methods: Precourse materials, manuals, illustrations, case vignettes, compact discs (CDs), algorithms, and tests were evaluated for culturally competent opportunities. An opportunity was defined as each question or scenario that could have been edited to reflect race or gender. Minority status was interpreted as skin color other than white. Each individual component was counted separately. After the quantitative tally, an analysis was performed using simple percentile comparisons. Interpretations were based on these percentages.Results: The majority of teaching opportunities (54%) did not reflect race or gender. Of 149 patient opportunities to adequately represent those at risk, none clearly represented a minority female. In the simulated cases on the provider CD, all patients were white males. The mannequin had a male haircut and an open shirt. No mannequin had female characteristics (eg, earrings, breasts, or women's clothing). None of the provider CD cases illustrated patients or mannequins with skin color other than white.Conclusions: The current ACLS provider and instructor materials do not maximize opportunities to illustrate vulnerable segments of the population. Future studies designed to evaluate the effect of improved representation of women and minorities in teaching models should be considered.