Update 4/05 the math scores are a proxy for education and the achievement scores correlate highly with income and poverty levels in a state. States with poor math scores tend to have poor high school graduation, lower income students do not do as well and there is lower choice of FP
Birth Origins and FP Choice for latest work
Some 15 years ago the
American Medical Association did some work noting that math and science were
important dating back to at least 4th grade. The lessons have stuck with me. We
are fortunate to have Roxanna Jokela working at UNMC and she has long worked
with communities, 8th grade students and science teachers, colleges, health
advisors, and more. After looking these over, we should do some more math work
to do better in FP.
I took Craig Howley's advice and looked at the math 8th grade achievement scores
for the state. The 8th grade science scores and the average bioscience MCAT
contributed to the previous regressions for all medical schools (allo, osteo,
public, private). The two science measures contributed in a similar way, as you
might expect since they are statewide measurements.
The math 8th grade variable has an impact, though in a different way and in a
most important group.
The math 8th Grade achievement variable did not do well with the regressions
involving all medical schools.
Selecting cases only to the allopathic public schools, the most numerous and the
most dependent upon the education levels in the state, the regression was most
interesting. Thanks Craig for your suggestion.
Now there is much more work to do.
It makes sense to think that statewide efforts to improve rural k-12 math
education would help us to graduate more rural fp docs back to such areas.
It also is worth exploring to see if changes in state education, particularly in
rural areas, are having an impact on medical schools such that we are graduating
fewer FP docs.
Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
rbowman@unmc.edu
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