P033 Moving the Needle on Speaker Diversity at AIBD

Area of Science:

• Medical Conferences
• Gastroenterology
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

Background:

• Growing focus on improving invited speaker diversity at academic conferences.
• Lack of prior evaluation of speaker diversity (gender, race, experience) in the IBD field.
• Need to assess trends at a major annual IBD conference.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate trends in speaker gender, race, and experience at the Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (AIBD) conference from 2014 to 2020.
• To assess the proportion of all-male panels over time.
• To compare speaker diversity metrics with a control conference.

Main Methods:

• Review of AIBD program brochures from 2014-2020.
• Evaluation of speaker demographics: gender, race, topic, institution, and years post-fellowship for gastroenterologists.
• Calculation of all-male panels and comparison with a control conference (Personalized Therapies in Thoracic Oncology).

Main Results:

• Female speakers increased from 25% (2016) to 39% (2020); female gastroenterologist speakers rose from 12% (2015) to 27% (2020).
• All-male panels decreased from 47% (2014-2017) to 11% (2018-2020).
• Racial diversity (Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, Black) remained static (avg. 13%, 5%, 1% respectively) and did not reflect US gastroenterologist demographics; average speaker experience was 15 years post-fellowship.

Conclusions:

• The proportion of female speakers at AIBD increased significantly by 2020.
• Opportunities exist to enhance racial and ethnic diversity among speakers.
• Greater inclusion of early-career gastroenterologists is recommended.