Longitudinal Gender Disparity in Female Urology Resident Primary Authorship at an American Urological Association Sectional Meeting

Abstract

To further evaluate the academic representation of female urology residents in the United States, we reviewed abstracts from the Mid-Atlantic American Urological Association (MA-AUA) sectional meetings to determine if the recent increase in the number of female urology residents mirrored an increase in this group's abstract authorship. Full text abstracts from the MA-AUA meetings were analyzed from 2008 to 2014 excluding 1 joint section meeting. First-author gender was determined by querying publicly available institutional websites, social media platforms, and the U.S. News & World Report. First-author gender was indeterminable in 10 abstracts based on search criteria and these were excluded. Individual abstracts were broadly categorized based on keywords into 1 of several topics. Chi-square statistical tests examined the relationship between first-authorship gender, publication year, and abstract category. The number of female urology residents in the MA-AUA increased over the study period. A total of 484 abstracts were analyzed. Three hundred ninety-three abstracts (81%) included a male first-author, whereas 81 abstracts (17%) included a female first-author. Female first-authorship ranged from 13% to 25% annually. Comparison of male-to-female first-authorship was statistically significant in all years evaluated (P <.001). There was a statistically significant difference between male and female first-authorship in all topic categories (P <.01), except Education/Other (P = .56). Despite continued gains and increasing female representation in urology, these data highlight significantly fewer female first-authors at the regional Mid-Atlantic section meetings. Larger studies are necessary to identify contributing factors and further areas for improvement toward decreasing gender imbalances within the academic community.