Inequality in the science profession remains an unfortunate reality, and research from the University of Pittsburgh highlights how systemic racism is causing significant psychological distress for scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

This distress is often caused by social unrest, but the study found that only around a third of such unrest negatively impacted people’s ability to work, with scientists saying that mentoring helped under such circumstances.

“Responses to open-ended survey questions made it seem like maybe people had positive feelings about mentoring because they were starting to talk about the racial justice movement and get affirmation of their feelings from their mentors,” the researchers explain.

Vital role

The research builds on a significant body of previous research that has highlighted the crucial role mentors can play in guiding less experienced people at work.

“Our findings reinforce the positive impact of mentoring,” the authors explain. “But mentoring isn’t the only answer. We’d be remiss not to emphasize the incredibly detrimental effects of psychological distress. People may have found ways to deal with this stress at work, but we know that early career scientists from underrepresented backgrounds disproportionately leave their careers.”

The research was a part of the Building Up a Diverse Biomedical Research Workforce (Building Up) Trial, which aims to test a range of approaches to try and improve the retention of early career researchers from underrepresented backgrounds.

“Many participants described work environments riddled with overt discrimination and isolation from other persons of color,” the researchers conclude. “I love science and research, but conducting it in a work environment that is not supportive and sometimes hostile is upsetting and stressful. Being inclusive and having diverse researchers, like myself and others, makes for better science and discovery to benefit society as a whole.”