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Abstract
Research on women, are we doing enough? An analysis of abstracts at the 4th IAS conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention, 2007
E. Collins1, S. Walmsley2
Background: There is concern over lack of research relevant to HIV and women. To assess this, we surveyed abstracts relating to women and girls presented at a major international AIDS conference: IAS 2007 in Sydney, Australia.
Methods: All accepted abstracts were screened for keywords and then evaluated to confirm relation to female gender using a priori criteria (studies concerning women, girls or female issues; study samples >50% female; and/or some gender analysis). Data was collected on abstract type and topic. A second analysis assessed gender breakdown of human samples in all conference abstracts presented as orals.
Results: Of 3239 abstracts submitted, 1666 regular and 17 late-breaker abstracts were accepted for oral and poster presentation, or CD-ROM publication. Keyword search identified 368 abstracts from which 64 were excluded for not meeting a priori criteria, leaving 304 abstracts relating to female gender. This represented 18.1% of all abstracts and 22.6% of all oral presentations. Of these, 7.2% were Basic Science, 43.7% Treatment, and 47.4% Prevention. Fifty-nine studies (19.4%) related to mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) and 37(12.2%) to pregnancy or other aspects of reproductive health. Twenty-two studies (7.2%) focused on infants, children or youth. Of 75 oral abstracts with human cohorts, 8 studies (10.7%) were in men only, 16(21.3%) in women only, 15(20%) in both and 36(48%) provided no gender breakdown of their samples.
Conclusions: Despite the HIV epidemic now reaching gender parity, research relevant to women at a major AIDS conference was <20% of total abstracts. A significant proportion of this research was in MTCT and other aspects of pregnancy and reproductive health. In studies in human cohorts presented as orals, almost half provided no gender breakdown of their sample in the abstract. Researchers should be encouraged to conduct more women-specific HIV research and at a minimum evaluate their findings according to gender.
AIDS 2008 - XVII International AIDS Conference
Abstract no.
CDD0248
Suggested Citation
"E.Collins, et al.
Research on women, are we doing enough? An analysis of abstracts at the 4th IAS conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention, 2007.
:
AIDS 2008 - XVII International AIDS Conference:
Abstract no.
CDD0248"
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