Gender disparities in the National Institutes of Health funding for genitourinary oncology.

Abstract

264 Background: Traditionally, women are under-represented in academic fields and thus less likely to receive grants and funds. Here we assessed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding trend in allocation of R401 grants in Genito-urinary oncology (GU) stratified by gender. Methods: The data were retrieved from the NIH RePORTER (Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditure) using GU-related search terms from 2018-2021. The gender was categorized using Genderize. The number of citations, publications, H-index, and seniority were obtained from Scopus and Web of Science in September 2022. Consumer Price Index was used to adjust funding amount to 2021 equivalent U.S. dollars. Linear regression was used for analysis. Results: A total of 873 NIH-funded R01 grants amounting to $388.5 million were awarded for GU research. Women (n= 206; 23.6% [95% CI: 20.8%-26.4%]) received fewer grants than men (n= 667; 76.4% [95% CI: 73.6%-79.2%]). Trending from 2018 to 2021, there was no significant difference in the number of grants awarded among both men (173 to 181, p=0.78) and women (50 to 53, p=0.92) within their groups. Similarly, there was no significant change in the grant amount (in millions) awarded among men (74.2 to 78.7, p=0.47) and women (23.6 to 22.4, p=0.30). Prostate cancer accounted for the greatest proportion of grants (n=689; 78.9% [95% CI: 76.2%-81.6%]), amounting to 304.4 million in 4 years. Of the 269 co-Principal Investigator (PIs), 240 (89.2% [95% CI: 85.5%-92.9%]) were men and 29 (10.8% [95% CI: 7.1%-14.5%]) were women. Male PIs compared to female PIs had a higher no. of publications (135 vs 106, p<0.01). Funding amount was significantly associated with the number of publications (β=0.05; p<0.01), seniority (β=0.10; p=0.015), institution (p<0.01) and degrees (p=0.03). However, there was no significant association with gender (β=0.05; p=0.17). Conclusions: Our analysis shows continued gender disparity in R01 awards as only 1 in 5 grants were awarded to women during the fiscal years of 2018-2021. Thus, concerted efforts are required to bridge this gap and promote gender equity. [Table: see text]