Gender Parity in CERA Survey Submissions

The Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA) is a unique collaboration of academic family medicine organizations (Society of Teachers of Family Medicine [STFM], Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, North American Primary Care Research Group, Association of Departments of Family Medicine) that facilitates and improves educational research in family medicine. CERA conducts approximately five surveys per year, including residency program directors, clerkship directors, department chairs, and general membership. Members of these organizations propose modules of 10 questions for these surveys. Proposals are peer-reviewed, and the top proposals are incorporated, along with standardized demographic questions, into an omnibus survey. We sought to determine the impact of self-reported gender of the primary submitter on survey module acceptance rates.

We conducted a bibliometric analysis to explore author characteristics and quantify dissemination efforts. We conducted ꭓ2 analyses to determine gender differences in proposal acceptance. We used the exact binomial test to compare proportions of women authors to the benchmark proportion of women in STFM.

Overall, women submitted 66% (460/699) of CERA survey module proposals and authored 65% of accepted CERA modules (157/241) with the highest proportion concentrated among Clerkship Surveys (73%, 40/55). The acceptance rate did not differ significantly by gender (χ2=0.07, df=1, P=.80). A total of 73.4% (177/241) of module authors went on to present or publish their findings; we found no significant differences in scholarly output by gender (χ2=0.70, df=1, P=.41).

These findings indicate that the CERA module submission process has been successful in achieving comparable acceptance rates for men and women submitters. Other specialties should consider a similar model as a means to support early career educational researchers, including women.