Under-representation of women in high-impact published clinical cancer research
| Autor: | Sudha Amarnath, Reshma Jagsi, Aleksandra Jankovic, Peter A. Ubel, Amy R. Motomura, Nathan C. Sheets |
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| Rok vydání: | 2009 |
| Předmět: |
Cancer Research
Financing Government Biomedical Research Patients Population MEDLINE Medical Oncology medicine Humans Women Prospective Studies Sex Distribution education Prospective cohort study education.field_of_study Clinical Trials as Topic business.industry Patient Selection Cancer type Cancer Regression analysis medicine.disease Oncology Cancer incidence Cancer research Female Journal Impact Factor Periodicals as Topic business Student's t-test |
| Zdroj: | Cancer. 115(14) |
| ISSN: | 0008-543X |
| Popis: | BACKGROUND. Adequate representation of women in research has been deemed essential. METHODS. Cancer research published in 8 journals in 2006 was reviewed. The percentage of women among study participants was compared with the proportion expected from population-based estimates of sex-specific cancer incidence, using binomial tests. Differences were assessed in sex distribution of participants by funding source, author sex, and focus of research with the Student t test, and in a linear regression model controlling for cancer type. RESULTS. A total of 1534 cancer research articles were identified, of which 661 (representing 1,096,098 participants) were prospective clinical studies and were analyzed further. For all 7 nonsex–specific cancer types assessed, the majority of studies analyzed included a lower proportion of women than the proportion of women among patients having cancer of that type in the general population. Among studies focusing on cancer treatment, women constituted a significantly lower overall proportion of the participants in the analyzed studies than expected for 6 of 7 non-sex–specific cancer types (P < .001). Among non-sex–specific studies, the mean percentage of participants who were women was 38.8%. Nonsex–specific studies reporting government funding had a higher percentage of female participants (mean 41.3% vs 36.9%; P ¼ .005). In a regression model controlling for cancer type, lack of government funding (P ¼ .03) and focus on cancer treatment (P ¼ .03) were found to be independent significant predictors of a lower percentage of female participants. CONCLUSIONS. Women were under-represented as participants in recently published, high-impact studies of non-sex–specific cancers. Studies that received government funding included a higher proportion of female subjects. Cancer 2009;115:3293–301. V C 2009 American |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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