Table 2

Participant demographics, health policy instruction/information sources, and attitudes/barriers towards advocacy engagement

Gender	N	%
Male	14	23.33
Female	45	75.00
Non-binary/prefer not to say	1	1.67
Stage of training
Premedical student	1	1.67
Medical student	20	33.33
PGY-1 resident	2	3.33
PGY-2 resident	9	15.00
PGY-3 resident	4	6.67
Fellow	3	5.00
Faculty member	18	30.00
Other	3	5.00
Specialty (or intended specialty)
Internal medicine	5	8.33
Emergency medicine	1	1.67
Adolescent medicine	2	3.33
Family medicine	5	8.33
Paediatrics	5	8.33
OB/GYN	2	3.33
Infectious disease	2	3.33
Dermatology	32	53.33
General surgery	3	5.00
Surgical subspecialty	2	3.33
Other/non-medical	1	1.67
Other degrees
MPH	14	23.33
MPP/MPA	2	3.33
MBA	2	3.33
MSc	5	8.33
PhD	6	10.00
None	30	50.00
Other	2	3.33
Prior formal health policy instruction
Undergraduate	11	18.33
Post-baccalaureate	3	5.00
Medical school	25	41.67
Internship	5	8.33
Residency	12	20.00
Other graduate school	7	11.67
Other experience/programme	3	5.00
None	20	33.33
Source of health policy info
Formal in-person lectures/education activities	21	35.00
Discussions with peers/colleagues	41	68.33
Webinars	6	10.00
Peer-reviewed academic publications	15	25.00
News publications	38	63.33
Organised medicine publications	6	10.00
Think tank publications	7	11.67
Newsletters	13	21.67
Social media/blogs	32	53.33
Other internet sources	13	21.67
Other	3	5.00
How important do you think it is for physicians to be engaged in advocacy efforts?	Importance before COVID-19 (%)	Importance during COVID-19 (%)	P value*
Extremely important	58.33	83.33	<0.0001
Important	31.67	16.67
Moderately important	8.33	0.00
Somewhat important	1.67	0.00
Not important	0.00	0.00
Barriers to engaging in advocacy	Own barriers (%)	General physician barriers (%)	P value†
Lack of interest	3.33	33.33	<0.0001
Lack of knowledge	60.00	80.00	0.017
Lack of time	83.33	86.67	0.61
Financial cost	5.00	6.67	0.70
Not important	0.00	21.67	0.0001
Other	10.00	6.67	0.51
No barriers	3.33	0.00	0.16

*P value calculated from Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test for Likert scale.
†P values calculated from χ² tests for comparison of proportions.