In 2022, the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE) conducted a survey showing that DEI had infected many American hospitals.
The survey was administered to over 6,000 hospitals and achieved more than 1,300 responses. Do No Harm reported on the survey’s findings in early 2024:
Obviously, these findings are very troubling. They indicate a near-unanimous endorsement of DEI principles among America’s hospitals.
But now, not only is that report no longer available on the AHA website, but the entire IFDHE webpage is no longer available at all.
According to the digital archive Wayback Machine, the report was last available on the AHA site as far back as January 9, 2025; curiously, right before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who issued several executive orders in his first few days in office targeting DEI in healthcare.
Meanwhile, the IFDHE website was last publicly available, per the Wayback Machine, at some point in late January to early February 2025.
The IFDHE website now redirects to a webpage on the main AHA website titled “Reducing Disparities in Health Outcomes,” as does the report. The IFDHE X account has also not posted since late 2024.
From these facts, it’s unclear whether the AHA has abandoned its DEI institute altogether, or simply removed its public footprint.
But that’s not the only scrubbing the AHA has done over the past year.
In 2015, the AHA created a campaign titled the “#123forEquity Pledge to Act to Eliminate Health Care Disparities.”
The pledge, signed by hospital and health system leaders, included commitments “to take action” on at least one of the following goals: “Increase the collection, stratification and use of race, ethnicity, language preference and other sociodemographic data to improve quality and safety”; “Increase cultural competency training to ensure culturally responsive care”; “Advance diversity in leadership and governance to reflect the communities served”; and “Improve and strengthen community partnerships.”
The third item in that list is particularly worrying as it indicates an endorsement of racial discrimination.
The pledge was signed by more than 1,700 hospitals as of early 2024.
But that pledge, too, has vanished from the AHA website.
Indeed, even in the 2015 press release announcing the pledge, the link to the pledge details redirects to the “Reducing Disparities in Health Outcomes” webpage. A search for the pledge on the AHA website indicates that content related to the pledge, as well as other DEI-related materials, requires AHA membership to access.
The last archive available of the pledge on the Wayback Machine is dated January 2, 2025.
At the very least, it seems that the AHA is attempting to distance itself from its more overt attempts to inject DEI into hospital practices.
But that’s not good enough.
The AHA should make clear that it disavows these divisive, discriminatory practices, and commit to ensuring that hospitals prioritize the health and safety of their patients over ideological goals.
