| The purpose of this study is to investigate implicit racial preferences among dental hygienists.
This study used a two-part web-based survey to obtain demographic data and implicit racial
preference scores via the Race Implicit Association Test. A total of 603 licensed dental
hygienists in the United States participated in this study, and 404 surveys were used for analysis.
Results revealed that just over two-thirds (67.8%) of participants showed a preference for White
or European American. A significant difference was found between implicit racial preference
scores and participant age (0.01), years worked (-0.19), and race (-0.17). No difference was
found with task order, previous Race IAT experience, or previous implicit bias training or
education. Findings underscore the need for more research to better understand the context and
content of implicit bias training, as well as further examining implicit and explicit racial bias
with a more generalizable dental hygiene population |