Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, USA.
Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health (SESH), Guangzhou, China.
BMC Infect Dis. 2020 Sep 29;20(1):715. doi: 10.1186/s12879-020-05433-5.
Women are under-represented in many mid-career infectious diseases research fellowships, including a TDR fellowship for low- and middle-income country (LMIC) researchers. TDR solicited creative ideas as part of a challenge contest to increase the number of women fellowship applicants. The purpose of this study is to examine themes from submitted ideas and the impact of implementing the top three ideas on the number of women applicants.
We solicited ideas for modifying the TDR fellowship using a crowdsourcing challenge. Then we used a mixed methods approach to evaluate texts submitted in response to the challenge. The qualitative analysis identified themes from eligible submissions. The quantitative analysis examined the mean score (1-10 scale) assigned to submitted ideas and also the number of eligible women applicants before (2014-7) and after (2018) implementing the top three ideas.
We received 311 ideas on improving women's participation in this fellowship from 63 countries. Among all ideas, 282 (91%) were from women and 286 (92%) were from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Thirty-three (17%) ideas received an overall mean score of 7.0 or greater. The top three ideas included enhanced social media communication targeting women, improving career mentorship, and creating a nomination system to nudge women applicants. These ideas were implemented as part of the 2018 fellowship application cycle. The number of eligible women applicants increased from 11 in 2016 to 48 in 2018. The number of eligible men applicants increased from 55 in 2016 to 114 in 2018. Women represent 44% (8/18) of the 2018 cohort.
This suggests that the challenge contest resulted in strong participation from women in LMICs. The three top ideas likely contributed to a greater number of women applicants to this mid-career fellowship. Further ways of enhancing women's participation in global health training are needed.
在许多中级传染病研究奖学金中，女性的代表性不足，包括针对中低收入国家（LMIC）研究人员的 TDR 奖学金。TDR 征求了创意，作为挑战赛的一部分，以增加女性奖学金申请者的数量。本研究的目的是检查提交的想法中的主题以及实施前三个想法对女性申请者数量的影响。
我们使用众包挑战赛征求修改 TDR 奖学金的想法。然后，我们使用混合方法来评估对挑战赛的回应提交的文本。定性分析从合格提交中确定主题。定量分析审查了提交想法的平均得分（1-10 分），以及实施前三个想法之前（2014-7）和之后（2018）符合条件的女性申请者人数。
我们从 63 个国家收到了 311 条关于提高该奖学金中女性参与度的建议。在所有的想法中，282 条（91%）来自女性，286 条（92%）来自中低收入国家（LMICs）。33 条（17%）想法的总平均分达到 7.0 或更高。前三个想法包括针对女性的增强社交媒体沟通、改善职业指导以及创建提名制度来推动女性申请者。这些想法是作为 2018 年奖学金申请周期的一部分实施的。符合条件的女性申请者人数从 2016 年的 11 人增加到 2018 年的 48 人。符合条件的男性申请者人数从 2016 年的 55 人增加到 2018 年的 114 人。2018 年的女性申请者占 44%（8/18）。
这表明挑战赛导致来自 LMIC 的女性的积极参与。前三个想法可能有助于增加这一中级职业奖学金的女性申请者人数。需要进一步提高女性参与全球卫生培训的途径。
