The Community Pediatrics & Advocacy Curriculum: Standardizing Advocacy Education in Pediatric GME

Pediatricians are essential advocates for their patients in many contexts. The evolving role of the pediatrician as an advocate has led to a distinct need for the development and standardization of advocacy curricula in pediatric graduate medical education. With an increased emphasis placed by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education and the American Board of Pediatrics on advocacy as an essential skill for general and subspecialty pediatricians, the authors provide a framework for pediatric advocacy education based on a new socioecological model of pediatrician advocacy. The authors highlight the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)’s history of advocacy curriculum development and how it has shaped the approach to advocacy training in the field of pediatrics over the last 2 decades. A curricular framework, including goals, learning objectives, and exemplar activities, was developed from this previous work and compiled through expert consensus and further peer review by experts identified through the AAP’s Community Pediatrics Training Initiative. The current paper outlines the process of curating these tools, thereby creating an accessible and feasible baseline for programs.