Sex, race disparities persist among cardiology society awardees
An analysis of public awards data from professional cardiology societies shows that about 75% of awards are presented to white men, despite efforts to recognize women and people from underrepresented groups, researchers reported.
Substantial work has been done to highlight the underrepresentation of women in cardiology, particularly on CV journal editorial boards and among research grant recipients, cardiology division chiefs and fellowship program directors, Martha Gulati, MD, MS, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, FESC, president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology, professor of medicine at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, director of CVD prevention and associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center, and colleagues wrote in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Award distribution by medical societies provides another dimension of assessing disparities, they wrote.
“This was not done to criticize anyone; we understand that women are still the minority in cardiology,” Gulati told Healio. “Yet, we want to address the question of why there are not more women in cardiology. During the last 20 years, we have barely budged, moving from 13% women cardiologists to 14% today. Awards are very public and recognize people for the work they have done. We have improved over time. In 2000, 7% of award recipients were women, and that has risen to almost one-third of awards going to women, though it differs by country. We wanted to share that information as more of a snapshot of where we want to go.”
Gulati and colleagues queried seven major CV societies, including the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American Society of Echocardiography, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, the Heart Rhythm Society, the European Society of Cardiology and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society from 2000 to 2021. Researchers obtained lists of awardees from each society’s official website and classified them according to the award category, career level and eponym. Awards were stratified by sex, race and degree by using institutional websites. Facial appearance, name and/or country of origin were used to assign race/ethnicity. Gender-specific awards were excluded for sex-based analyses.
Of 173 awards, there were 3,044 awardees, of whom there were 2,830 unique awardees. Most awardees were white (75.2%). Asian, Hispanic/Latino and Black individuals represented 18.9%, 4.5% and 1.4% of the total awardees, respectively.
After exclusion of women-specific awards, there were 169 awards distributed to 2,995 recipients, of whom 76.2% of awardees were men and 23.8% were women.
There was an increasing trend in recognition of women, with 7.7% of women awardees in 2000 increasing to 31.2% in 2021 (P < .05).
The distribution of leadership awards to women (18.1%) was low compared with men. Among awardees with a PhD degree, 48.2% were women, which is nearly equal to men. However, when looking at awards predominantly given to MDs, including MD only, MD with PhD and MD with master’s, awards were presented to mostly men, with only 15.3%, 17.5%, and 18.2% women, respectively (P < .01).
“When we look at absolute numbers, [the data] does look promising,” Gulati said in an interview. “However, when we stratify by degree, for people with a PhD, there we see equality between men and women, which is great. But when the awards are predominantly for physicians, there, you see a wider gap. Remember that if you want more women in cardiology, we should be looking at the awards that are presented to MDs.”
Awards named after men were more likely to be presented to men than women, Gulati said. Awards with male eponyms had fewer women recipients than awards with non-eponymous awards (20.9% vs. 23.2%; P < .01).
“That may be some implicit bias due to the name of the award,” Gulati said. “Maybe we do not say that out loud, but that is what is happening.
“These awards are often tied to national and international recognition, and therefore into our promotions if you are in an academic setting,” Gulati said. “We lose many women mid-career because they do not get promoted, and this is another way to recognize them.”
Gulati said the cardiology community must be more proactive, nominating more women and people from diverse backgrounds for society awards and monitoring the breakdown of award recipients by sex, race and background.
“Data speaks volumes,” Gulati said. “Understanding that, again, we know there are fewer women in cardiology, but if we do not shine a light on women who have contributed greatly, the younger generation looking at us may not see themselves. It is important for us to think about diversity in the people that we honor.”
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