Understanding the nature of implicit bias can enhance how we communicate and interact with others. It has real impacts on health literacy and health equity. Using real life examples, this session highlights the crucial role bias plays in our intrapersonal assumptions and our interpersonal interactions. The session explores how unconscious cognitive biases are “hard-wired” into our brains and how they manifest among various social identities in healthcare to translate into health disparities. This signature session focuses on ways to identify and address unconscious bias for better communication and enhanced professional relationships, including provider/patient, professional/client, professional/consumer, professional/colleague, and teacher/learner. Common types of biases and numerous creative strategies for mitigating and disrupting implicit bias to enhance health literacy and health equity will be presented.
Attendees will be able to…
1. Define implicit or unconscious bias and understand the role socialization plays in establishing and maintaining biases.
2. Identify the impact of implicit bias on healthcare, health literacy, and health equity.
3. Apply strategies for disrupting and reducing implicit bias as it relates to health literacy.