Gender and Ethnic Diversity within the Health Education Professoriate via the Doctoral Pipeline

Abstract

Data were acquired from the National Research Council depicting the number of new doctorates in health education for a 10-year period, 1983–1992. These data are presented by gender and by race/ethnicity. For the 10-year period, 910 new doctorates were awarded, 274 (30 percent) to men and 636 (70 percent) to women. Only 61 or 7.6 percent of the doctorates went to ethnic minorities. A further breakdown relative to race/ethnicity is presented and comparisons are made with other demographic data such as the U.S. population and certain education characteristics. While the gender picture has remained constant over the 10-year period, there is no trend emanating from the doctoral pipeline to provide any encouragement toward increasing minority numbers within the health education professoriate. Implications for the health education profession are delineated.