Award Recipients for Pediatric Gastroenterology: A Descriptive Analysis of Gender Distribution

Abstract

Society awards are an important component of recognition in medicine and for career advancement such as promotion. Multiple studies conducted in pediatrics and gastroenterology have shown underrepresentation of women awardees even in fields with a higher proportion of women than men. To our knowledge, no such studies have been conducted in pediatric gastroenterology. We hypothesized that among all recipients, women would be underrepresented when compared to men and that women were more likely to be given teaching awards compared to other career achievement awards. We collected data on recipients of major recognition award presented by The North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition from 1987 to 2022. We found that 80.90% of the awards had been given to men and that most nominators were men. This study highlights inequities in women recipients for major awards and presents an opportunity for a call for action to examine and address the factors contributing to this gender inequity.