Women have fewer active participation roles at respiratory medicine conferences than men, although Australian meetings fare better than their international counterparts, research shows.
A Royal Melbourne Hospital study published in the European Respiratory Journal, analysed gender participation rates at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress in 2017, the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) annual scientific meeting 2018 and the British Thoracic Society (BTS) winter meeting 2017.
Pooled results from all three conferences, which had over 23,000 attendees, showed that women were under-represented as invited speakers (23% vs 77% male) and session chairs (31% vs 69%), compared to males,. For poster and oral presentations there were significantly more female first authors (1713 vs 1562 males), whereas more males were listed as last authors on presentations (2057 vs 1202), with this position representing the most senior member of the research team.
The ERS Congress had the greatest gender imbalance for participants, with only 23% females having roles of invited speaker and 31% taking on the role of session chairperson. At the BTS meeting, fewer invited speakers were female (35%), although broadly similar numbers of males and females were invited to chair sessions (45% female). The TSANZ annual scientific meeting, had similar numbers of males and females as invited speakers (49% female) and as chairpersons of sessions (46%).
The study authors said the findings highlighted the ongoing gender imbalance in respiratory medicine research and reflected unconscious bias and systemic barriers to women participating in meetings. But the problem was not just at conference programming level, but reflected the lack of senior roles for women in respiratory medicine research and its professional societies.
“At the entry level of academic research (first author conference presentations) in respiratory medicine, women participate significantly more than men. However, a gender gap appears and widens significantly as the conference role becomes more senior and prestigious, with fewer women involved,” they noted.
“Previous studies have determined that women tend to have a greater interest in teaching than research, and that the gender bias and lack of adequate mentorship contributes to the disparity of genders in academic medicine,” they noted.
“In addition, bullying and sexual harassment have been identified as important issues in both clinical and academic medicine, and present barriers to career advancement for women