WHERE ARE ALL THE FEMALE PARTICIPANTS IN SPORTS AND EXERCISE MEDICINE RESEARCH? A DECADE LATER

Authors

B Ose
J Eisenhauer
I Roepe
A Herda
B Vopat
L Vopat

Abstract

Ben Ose¹, Jake Eisenhauer², Isaiah Roepe³, Ashley Herda², Bryan Vopat³, & Lisa Vopat³

¹University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, Kansas; ²University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas; ³University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas

PURPOSE: In 2014 Costello et al. published a sentinel paper spotlighting the large disparity of female versus male representation within sports science and sports medicine (SSSM) research. The purpose of this study is to revisit the method published by Costello et al. a decade later to evaluate female representation and if study designs’ account for menstrual status. METHODS: All original and epidemiologic research of live human participants from the journals Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, British Journal of Sports Medicine, and American Journal of Sports Medicine were included from January 2021 - August 2023. Number of male and female participants for each study were analyzed. A menstrual status tiering system published by Smith et al. was used to classify the consideration of female participants’ menstrual status in study design. RESULTS: A total of 1,441 studies and 40,152,860 participants were included in this analysis. This included 17,648,509 (43.95%) females. The mean proportion of female participants per study was 40.17% and 103 (7.15%) studies included only female subjects. A total of 66 (5.6%) studies included menstrual status considerations in their study design with 8 (11.6%) and 6 (8.3%) of those studies receiving a silver or gold classification respectively for design considerations. CONCLUSION: Our investigation into the representation of female athletes in SSSM research reveals a moderate increase in female participation over the past decade. There remains a significant disparity in SSSM research between female and male participants. We found that the inclusion of menstrual status in study designs has been limited, with few studies considering this crucial variable.

Recommended Citation

Ose, B; Eisenhauer, J; Roepe, I; Herda, A; Vopat, B; and Vopat, L (2024) "WHERE ARE ALL THE FEMALE PARTICIPANTS IN SPORTS AND EXERCISE MEDICINE RESEARCH? A DECADE LATER," International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings: Vol. 11: Iss. 11, Article 11.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol11/iss11/11