Abstract

PURPOSE: ASTRO has produced evidence-based clinical practice guidelines since 2009. It is unknown whether task force members for these guidelines are representative of the diversity of the radiation oncology field, particularly in comparison to the ASTRO membership demographics. We sought to characterize the demographic composition of all task force members to date.METHODS: The author list for ASTRO-led published guidelines from 2010-2022 was assessed. Main practice location/institution was extracted from the guideline publication. Self-identified gender and race/ethnicity was obtained from the ASTRO membership database. Years of experience was measured as the number of years post-Board Certification at time of guideline development. For US-based physicians, gender was confirmed with the National Provider Identifier database. Proportions of task force members overall and by individual guideline were described by gender, underrepresented-in-medicine (URM) status, geography (US versus Int'l), US-region (if US-based), years of experience (separated into =5 years including residents, 6-12 years, and >12 years), and type of practice. Proportions for gender, URM, and geography were compared to ASTRO membership demographics.RESULTS: Between 2010-2022, there were 25 guideline task forces, with a total of 366 participants; 233 men, 126 women, and 7 unknown gender. There were more men than women serving on most individual task force topics, with 28% of all task forces having >80% composition of men. Of those with self-identified race/ethnicity, 9/204 (4.4%) were underrepresented in medicine (URM), which was lower in proportion to URM self-identified ASTRO members (336/3277, 10.3%, p=0.007). Most participants were based in the US (n=323, 88.3%), had >12 years of experience (n=141, 38.5%) and were from academic institutions (n=302, 82.5%). Community practitioners were less likely to be women or URM.CONCLUSION: Improved data collection and more intentional efforts are needed to ensure that the diversity of guidelines task forces is representative of ASTRO membership and the specialty.

View details for DOI 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2022.10.031

View details for PubMedID 36368435