Representation of Women in Cardiovascular Clinical Trial Leadership

Abstract

It is well documented that women are underrepresented in leadership within academic medicine. In biomedical sciences, they account for almost half of postdoctoral fellows but only 19% of tenured senior investigators. 1 Cardiology lags behind other internal medicine specialties with regard to women entering the field and achieving leadership positions. 2 However, little is known about women in cardiovascular clinical trial leadership. In this study, we describe their representation within leadership committees of clinical trials, as well as in lead authorship positions of ensuing trial publications.Methods | Because this quality improvement study did not involve patients, it was not subject to approval per the institutional review board specifications at the Cleveland Clinic. For this study, we included cardiovascular medicine publications presenting clinical trial results published in JAMA,

The importance of achieving sex- and gender-based equity in clinical trials: a call to action

“…Of the clinical trial results published in JAMA, The Lancet , and New England Journal of Medicine from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2018, women constituted only 10.1% of clinical trial leadership committees. 16 A diverse workforce is better capable of understanding diverse participant populations and, hence, tailoring research products better to participants. Moreover, the inclusion of diversity within research teams may provide a source of more inclusivity, such as participatory research in which patients are included in the development of research questions, designs, analysis, and authoring of studies.…”

Why Are We Not There Yet?

“…Cardiology journal editorial boards have only about 15% female members. The same is the problem in clinical trial leadership for cardiovascular trials ( 6 ). More than one-half of all trials had no female leadership and only 1 in 10 had women as first or last authors on the trial publication in reports of major cardiovascular clinical trials.…”

Representation of Women Authors in Trials of Lipid‐Lowering Therapy

“… 2 , 3 In a recent study, women constituted only 10% of cardiovascular disease clinical trial leadership committees, and more than half of these trials' leadership was entirely devoid of women investigators. 4 Only 1 in 10 studies had a female investigator in the first, senior, and overall authorship position. 4 …”