Minority representation in the 2024 American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) annual meeting program.

PURPOSE: To determine the level of minority representation at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Association of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS).

METHODS

The abstract submissions process for the 2024 AAPOS annual meeting allowed self-reporting of authors' status as underrepresented in medicine (URiM). The choice "decline to answer" (DTA) was available for all questions. The different groups' submission outcomes (paper, poster, and workshop) were compared. URiM was defined as having one or more of the following identities: Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; American Indian or Alaska Native; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer.

RESULTS

In research abstracts, 17% of all authors and 13.7% of presenting authors identified as URiM (16% and 17% chose DTA, resp.). There were no significant differences in the proportion of abstracts accepted as a paper or poster presentation between URiM and non-URiM authors (P > 0.7 for all comparisons). Female presenting authors were more likely to have an accepted abstract than males (81.6% vs 66.4% [P = 0.0015]). Subgroup analysis showed no differences between URiM and non-URiM in paper presentations. In workshop abstracts, 39.6% of panelists and 10.4% of organizers identified as URiM, respectively. There were no significant differences in workshop abstract acceptance rates between URiM and non-URiM presenting authors (P > 0.1 for all comparisons).

CONCLUSIONS

The current AAPOS approach toward meeting representation, which includes masked evaluation of abstracts for presentation, appears to be equitable toward URiM presenters.