Inclusion of female participants in cardiovascular research: a case study of Ontario NSERC-funded programs.

This study explored inclusion of female participants in Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant (NSERC-DG)-funded human cardiovascular research at Ontario universities between 2010-2018. Ninety-six publications were examined and 4 principal investigators were interviewed. Females were excluded/underrepresented in 63% of publications with 49% male-only and 5% female-only samples. The sex-bias appears to be explained by dependence on research knowledge and methodologies that maintain and reproduce a firmly established discourse of the male norm. Female participants were underrepresented in NSERC DG-funded cardiovascular research at Ontario universities between 2010-2018.