Determinants of Equal Access to Higher Health Education Opportunities in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Background: Today, the health higher education system has a privileged position in maintaining, rebuilding, producing, and creating new knowledge and responsibilities in medical universities. Solving these problems requires adopting a scientific and research approach in order to provide fair conditions and equal educational opportunities. Objectives: The present study aimed to evaluate the determinants of equal access to higher health education opportunities in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study evaluated contextual, input, process, and output indicators. Samples included the documents and statistics of seven schools of KUMSand 358 students of these schools in the academic year 2020 - 2021. Census sampling was used for the documents, and relative stratified random sampling was applied for the quantitative sections. Data analysis was performed in SPSS using TOPSIS and multiple linear regression models in a stepwise manner. Results: The independent variables were significant regarding the variable of inequality in educational opportunities among the medical students of KUMS (F = 590.11; P 0.001). The variables of the model explained 99.7% of the variance of the dependent variable, indicating inequality between the KUMS medical schools in terms of the studied indicators. Conclusions: Government policies should be focused on the development of educational equality in medical sciences on all levels of health, education, and technological developments. Our findings indicated differences between the medical schools of KUMS in terms of educational indicators and the location of the schools in less privileged, semi-privileged, and privileged areas.