Gender representation of presenters at American Academy of Ophthalmology conferences from 2004-2019

Importance: Gender equity is an important topic in medicine and accurate trends are essential to evaluate historical, current, and future trends. Objective: To describe changes in gender representation at American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) meetings from 2004 to 2019. Participants: Presenters at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meetings from 2004 to 2019. Design & Setting: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study. Data was extracted using AAO annual and subspecialty meeting archives for every third year between 2004 and 2019. Sessions were stratified by category and subspecialty. Poster sessions were excluded. Gender was considered binary and determined using pronouns or photographs from professional websites when available and the gender-api name tool when individual information was not available. Main outcome measures: Proportion of gender of the presenters at the American Academy of Ophthalmology within respective specialties with a focus on surgical vs clinical sessions. Results: The proportion of female presenters at AAO meetings increased between 2004 and 2019 from 13% to 29%. The largest changes were observed for oncology (net +28%, 1.85%/year increase, OR 1.09) and oculoplastics (+25%, 1.66%/year increase, OR 1.106). For surgical sessions, the increase in proportion of female speakers fell short of the overall increase in representation in comprehensive (+16% overall vs. +13% for surgical sessions), glaucoma (11% vs. 7%), and pediatrics (+17% vs. -1%). The increase in female representation among surgical session presenters did not exceed the overall increase for any subspecialty. For clinical sessions, the proportion of female leaders exceeded the overall increase in cornea (20% cornea vs. 13% overall), neuro-ophthalmology (15% vs. 9%), and pediatrics (35% vs. 17%). Conclusions: Female representation among presenters at the AAO annual and subspecialty meetings increased between 2004 and 2019 for all subspecialties. For many subspecialties, there was a proportionally slower rate of increase in female representation among surgical session presenters and faster rate of increase for clinical sessions.