P791 Trends in gender representation in inflammatory bowel disease randomized trials from 1955-2023

Abstract

Abstract Background Historically women have been underrepresented in the field of gastroenterology and continue to be under-represented in academic scholarship and leadership despite the rising number of female medical graduates in recent years.This study aims to characterize the representation of women in authorship of published clinical trials in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and the trend in gender representation since 1955. Methods IBD randomized trials published between 1955 to 2023 were included. Author gender, trial specifics (phase, intervention, population) source of funding were examined. Results We included 241 trials with a total of 3,264 authors: 2,418 were men (74.1%), 834 women (25.6%) and 12 (0.4%) had unknown gender. Women authorship representation increased from 0% in 1971 up to 30% in 2023 (0.41% annual increase) Figure 1A. Women were first, second, corresponding and last authors in 36/241 (14.2%), 41/241 (15.3%), 27/241 (10.5%) and 30/241 (11.7%) of published trials, respectively, Figure 1. Statistical differences in authorship by gender were found in all study categories, with women being less represented than men in unicenter vs multicenter trials, adult vs pediatric population trials, different trial phases, type of intervention [standard, advance or other] and source of funding (p<0.0001 for all comparisons) Table 1. From 2000 to 2023, industry-sponsored studies (n=119) included 1,680 authors, with 1,295 (77.1%) men and 379 (22.9%) women. Among these authors, 576 had industry affiliation, and 318 (55.2%) were men and 258 (44.8%) women. Women were first, second, corresponding and last authors in 15/119 (12.6%), 12/119 (10.1%), 11/119 (11.2), 10/119 (8.4%) of these studies. Linear regression analysis revealed an upward trend since 1995 in the total number of authors listed per published trial, but with men consistently outnumbering women authors, the ratio of women to men authors per publication remains low over the years (p<0.0001) Figure 1B. Conclusion Our findings underscore persistent gender disparities in published IBD trials authorship. Despite an increase in representation over time, women still make up less than 35% of authors and less than 15% of lead authors with little if any improvement over recent years (Figure 1C, 1D). Recognizing that lead authorship in trials has an impact on research funding and academic promotion, this gender disparity in authorship contributes to the many barriers women face in advancing their career in the field of IBD.