Despite efforts to boost the presence of women and other underrepresented groups, things hadn’t changed much when it came to Black participation.
(Bloomberg) — As a biotech investor, Justin Williams is accustomed to being the only Black person in the room. But he was still surprised by how few people looked like him at the recent agenda-setting health industry convention in San Francisco.
The high-profile JPMorgan Healthcare Conference returned to in-person format last week for the first time in three years, and while efforts have been made to boost the presence of women and other underrepresented groups, things hadn’t changed much when it came to Black attendance.
There were some 8,000 people with passes while about 40,000 more were on the sidelines; Williams said he saw a handful who were Black in five days, when he attended about 10 sessions. The list of close to 900 speakers posted online had no more than a couple dozen who appeared to be Black.
“How can you talk about diversity of health care when you’re at the JPMorgan conference, one of the biggest health-care conferences in the world, and there isn’t diversity,” Williams, an associate at Pathway Bioventures, said. “For those who attend this conference, information is being recycled to people who look like them. And if we’re the minority, it never reaches the community of color.”
Adding Quality
About 46% of panel and keynote speakers were “diverse,” JPMorgan said, meaning they weren’t White men. The company always seeks to have a diverse set of speakers, participants and viewpoints at its conferences, which adds to their quality, a spokesperson said.
Inclusion and diversity were topics of discussion at some dinners and breakout sessions outside the main conference, and meeting organizers set up equality lounges as meet-up points. But the crowded halls continued to be filled mainly by White men. The challenge to boosting diversity at the confab remains daunting and reflects disturbing, entrenched disparities in US health care.
For example, Black patients reported being discriminated against or unfairly judged by care providers almost three times more often than White adults in a 2021 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report. A study by the Commonwealth Fund the same year found that racial and ethnic inequities were pervasive and led to worse outcomes across all state health systems. Black representation in the broader life-sciences workforce is 6%, compared with 13% in the general US population, according to recruitment website BioSpace.
Addressing health disparities was also on this week’s agenda at the the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switizerland, where organizers announced a global “zero health gap” pledge that calls for concerted action across sectors and organizations to advance health equity.
Wider Problem
The diversity deficit isn’t just health care’s problem: Bloomberg has chronicled the lack of Black representation across government and corporate sectors, from Big Tech to the Federal Reserve to climate science research.
Read More: America’s Top Employers Are Winning at Race Data Transparency- Except Musk and Buffett
The lack of Black participants at the JPMorgan conference gained prominence after Jennie Nwokoye, founder of a health-care service called Clafiya, tweeted “I can’t lie, it’s been very intimidating to not see people who look like me. Not a single person.”
Nwokoye, whose company uses digital tools to connect patients with affordable primary care in Nigeria, told Bloomberg News she had flown to San Francisco for the convention after finding out about it on social media. She wasn’t invited, so she attended side events and listened to conference speeches from an overflow room.
Some events organized by Black executives were helpful for networking with investors, she said, but she wished they had been part of the main conference. She also wished that attending the conference was easier and more affordable, and one presenter’s remarks about equality spurred her to stop and look around.
“They were talking about diversity and inclusion,” she said, “but the room was not diverse by any means.”
Some participants were heartened by what they said was an increased presence of women and underrepresented groups compared to past years.
A women’s breakfast that Pfizer Inc. hosts each year has grown over time, according to Marianne De Backer, who leads business development and licensing for Bayer AG’s pharmaceuticals division. More than 150 women attended the breakfast, Pfizer said, up about 20% from January 2020, the last time the JPMorgan conference was held in person. A regular attendee, De Backer said that this year the room felt too small to accommodate the function.
“I thought that was actually, wow, a good sign that there’s more women coming to this meeting,” she said.
Rob Perez, founder of Life Science Cares, a nonprofit that helps companies design and carry out community engagement initiatives, lauded a reception organized by Biopharma Leaders of Color.
“Great to see so many leaders of color in one place!” he tweeted.
Sanofi SA Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson spoke at length during his presentation about the need to boost diversity in the workforce, a goal that still appears to elude the industry overall. About 34% of the company’s US workers are people of color, he said, and 41% of leadership roles are filled by women.
“We’re saying that it is not acceptable to change the practice of medicine, deliver for investors, unless we are absolutely responsible for the workforce that we have a contract with,” he said. “To make sure that they look like the society that they live in and represent as patients; this point is non-negotiable for us.”
About 7.3% of Johnson & Johnson’s vice presidents are Black, along with about 6.3% of managers and directors and 7.7% of professionals overall, according to a report. The company has pledged $100 million over five years to train front-line health workers in under-served communities.
People Like Us
Achieving equity “is a job that has to be done by all actors in health care,” J&J Chief Executive Officer Joaquin Duato said in a post-conference webinar.
Stanley Lewis, who runs a biopharma startup, said he’s been attending the JPMorgan conference for over 10 years and sees almost no increase in Black attendees. He said that’s because the health-care industry itself hasn’t changed.
The founder of A28 Therapeutics, Lewis said funding his project has been difficult and noted the lack of venture capital going to Black startup founders. They raised about 1% of all VC funds last year, according to TechCrunch. It’s even harder for biotech startups, Lewis said.
“I think the conference is a reflection of the companies,” he said. “It’s the companies themselves that have to change, and that will ultimately trickle down.”
Vaccine hesitancy in some communities may be one fallout of lack of diversity, he said. “People who are presenting these health-care options aren’t trusted and don’t look like the folks they are vaccinating.”
“There’s a lot of good work going on, but there’s more to do” to improve diversity, said Marc Fields, senior vice president of racial and social equity and culture at California Life Sciences, a state industry trade association. Companies in health care need to change their culture to raise recruitment and avoid attrition among Black workers.
The conference’s focus on publicly traded companies and those that have raised many millions of dollars has a lot to do with the composition of its participants, said Rhonda Wallen, a member of Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc.’s board who attended side events at the meeting this year.
“That money doesn’t come to people who look like us,” she said.
(Adds World Economic Forum pledge in eighth paragraph)
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