Examination of Gender Disparity in Research Presentations at an International Oncology Conference

PURPOSE Women occupy a minority of academic leadership positions despite increasing representation in the physician workforce. Similarly, women remain underrepresented as academic conference presenters, an important factor for career advancement. We examined whether there were gender disparities in opportunities to present original research at the ASCO Annual Meeting. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed oral original research, educational, and discussant presentations at the ASCO Annual Meetings from 2018 to 2021. Presenters were identified as first author, senior author, or ASCO-appointed (chair, discussant, or speaker). Presenter-identified gender was unavailable; binary gender was determined by presenter name, pronouns, video files, and institutional websites. Presenter gender distributions were summarized descriptively by nominal levels for each third variable with corresponding odds ratios (ORs) for each nominal level. Common ORs were estimated for each third variable if the Breslow-Day test was not significant, with no adjustments for P values. RESULTS We reviewed 4,267 video presentations, divided into original research (n = 2,079) and ASCO-appointed (n = 2,188). Women represented 37% of first authors (OR, 0.68 95% CI, 0.60 to 0.76) and 28% of senior authors (OR, 0.44 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.50), compared with 47% of ASCO-appointed presenters. Women were significantly more likely to have an ASCO-appointed role than a first or senior author role, even after adjusting for conference year, session type, session area, academic rank, and geographic region. CONCLUSION Gender disparities persist in opportunities to present original research at the ASCO Annual Meeting. Women were less likely to present research as first or senior author and were more likely to have an educational or discussant role. As high-profile original research can elevate careers, examining factors contributing to this disparity may suggest approaches to address gender leadership gaps in oncology.