Representation of Women in Vitreoretinal Meeting Faculty Roles from 2015 through 2019.

OBJECTIVE To describe the proportion of female faculty presenting or moderating at vitreoretinal meetings from 2015 through 2019. DESIGN Retrospective trend study. SUBJECTS 6 highly-attended annual national vitreoretinal meetings from 2015-2019 (30 total meetings) METHODS: Conference programs were acquired either via online search or directly from meeting organizers and were reviewed and analyzed. Genders of program committee members, first author main podium presenters of papers and non-papers, main podium panelists, and main podium moderators were recorded. Chi square analysis was performed to compare the proportion of women with podium roles in 2015 and each subsequent year to 2019. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Change in proportion of women filling faculty roles in 2015 versus 2019 RESULTS: A total of 4,521 faculty roles were included for analysis. Women filled 22.1% of these roles and were more likely to be included as an invited moderator or panelist (25.0%) than as a paper (21.4%) or non-paper (19.8%) presenter. Meetings with at least one female program committee member were significantly more likely to include female non-paper presenters (p=0.02), moderators or panelists (p=0.02), and total women faculty (p<0.001). While there were no significant changes in the proportion of women when comparing consecutive years, the overall trend was for an increased proportion of women faculty, with a significant increase from 19.6% in 2015 to 25.5% in 2019 (p=0.002). When examining the types of faculty roles filled by women, there was a statistically significant increase from 2015 to 2019 in the proportion of abstract presentations (19.7% vs. 25.2%, p=0.045), but a non-statistically significant increase in invited presentations and moderator or panelist roles. CONCLUSIONS and Relevance: Women filled less than a quarter of main podium faculty roles at vitreoretinal meetings included for analysis over a five-year period, although there was a significant increase in female representation when comparing 2015 to 2019. Meetings with at least one female program committee member filled non-paper podium faculty roles with a significantly greater proportion of women.