Speaking up for balance: analysis of the gender of invited speakers at UK dental conferences

Introduction Across healthcare, there is an urgent call to action to address systematic gender bias impeding equity for women. Gender imbalance exists for speakers at medical conferences. This research presents the first descriptive analysis of gender balance of speakers at dental conferences. Objectives Describe the gender balance of invited speakers at UK conferences of the dental specialties and general dentistry in a two-year period. Consider the findings in relation to gender balance of dental and specialist registrants. Method Gender, presentation length and professional role were extracted from conference programmes. Acceptable gender balance was pre-specified as 40-60%. Gender data were extracted from the GDC registration report. Results Of 352 invited speakers, 39.8% (n = 140) were identified as female and 60.2% (n = 212) as male. Gender was acceptably balanced in 21.4% (n = 3) of conferences. Gender balance of specialist speakers varied, as does gender distribution within the specialties themselves. Only 38.5% (n = 5) of specialties had a specialist speaker gender balance representative of their speciality. Conclusion There is a call for further research to drive equity in the characteristics of invited speakers and to determine whether there is correlation with representation in the composition of conference organising committees, leadership, professional roles and the workforce. Conference organisers are encouraged to strive proactively and prospectively towards representative programmes.