In a new commentary piece on Oncology News, Dr Ursula Sansom-Daly and Associate Professor Carline Ford bring attention to important issues in scientific and medical research that have been barriers for women in research for far too long. Ursula and Caroline discuss the disparity in at-home caring duties between men and women, and how this is having an impact on publications and grant applications – especially now during the COVID-19 ‘lockdown’. Ursula and Caroline also discuss how the COVID 19 pandemic could be (and should be) the catalyst for systemic change in academia, and particularly for academic conferences.
 
Conference Travel
While attending and presenting at conferences is a core aspect of contributing to research, the travel aspect of this, that is almost always non-negotiable, makes conference attendance almost impossible for many early career researchers with young children, or those with elderly or unwell family members.
Conferences are vital for development of research ideas, presenting outcomes from research and have important networking opportunities for early career researchers to connect with international researchers for collaborations.
Despite changing societal expectations around the distribution of caring and domestic duties in the home, women still disproportionally carry the load of this work, making conference attendance even harder.
 
Are there any equitable solutions for this?
The obvious solution is for researchers with children to just bring their children along, but this isn’t always possible and presents a whole new area of problems to be dealt with. For example: what do the kids do while you’re trying to present a keynote speech? How do you network effectively with children interrupting? There are sometimes opportunities for researchers to access scholarships to help fund the extra costs associated with bringing family along, and very occasionally some innovative conferences have offered childcare as part of the registration fee (see pic). However, these types of support tend to be the exception rather than the rule, available to only a few lucky researchers.

Who is missing out on this?
It’s not uncommon for the costs of attending an international conference to exceed AU$3000. This sort of money is often not manageable for early career researchers who do not have travel budgets, or researchers who live in low-to-middle income countries. And while there is undoubtedly a career impact from not attending conferences while your colleagues are, it is really challenging to quantify this. Ursula describes this as similar to the phenomenon of Friday-night drinks in the corporate world: how do we know exactly what chance meeting we may or may not have missed out on by not crossing paths with a particular professor at a conference and having the opportunity to discuss potential collaborations?
 
“The sky does, in fact, not fall in when we stream a conference session over Zoom”
 
We have had good videoconferencing abilities for over a decade, but it has taken a global pandemic and closed borders to move conferences online. Conferences held recently, like the 2020 Victorian Cancer Survivorship Conference and the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2020,  successfully welcomed virtual attendees from across the world just as the COVID-19 lockdown was becoming very real in Australia.
 
 Can the COVID-19 pandemic be the catalyst for change and a move towards gender equity?
Is it possible that the unexpected silver lining to this pandemic is that we are able to close the gap for women in STEMM? While we are all looking forward to face-to-face conversations and gatherings again, we are hopeful that the lessons we have all learned from working and networking remotely will lay the foundations for greater diversity in academia into the future.
 
 
To read the full article written by Dr Ursula Sansom-Daly and Associate Prof Caroline Ford, visit this link https://oncologynews.com.au/could-the-covid-19-lockdown-solve-one-of-the-persistent-barriers-to-gender-equity-in-research/

Childhood cancer can have enormous physical and psychological impacts on families. The financial toll of childhood cancer can also be significant. During treatment, families face out-of-pocket expenses which can contribute to their ‘financial toxicity’, meaning the financial burden related to a cancer diagnosis and treatment. Out-of-pocket expenses may include petrol and road tolls for travel to and from the hospital, parking at the hospital, food while away from home, and childcare for the siblings. The other thing which affects families’ financial toxicity is that parents commonly reduce their working hours after their child is diagnosed with cancer, which may mean their household income is also reduced.

Our study
Previous evidence suggests that financial toxicity and employment interruptions may continue even after a child successfully completes cancer treatment. Also, experiences with financial toxicity may vary according to different familial factors (e.g. having pre-existing savings).
We wanted to examine the longer-term financial toxicity and employment interruptions among parents of children who completed cancer treatment. We also examined how parents’ experiences differed for parents living across different socioeconomic status (SES) areas.

Our findings
We interviewed 56 Australian parents (50 mothers and 6 fathers) of childhood cancer survivors about their experiences with financial toxicity and interruptions to their employment. On average, children had successfully completed cancer treatment two years prior to the study (time since treatment completion ranged from 6 months to 10 years).
Two groups of parents were particularly vulnerable to ongoing, unwanted financial or employment impacts: 1) families living in low SES areas reported ongoing financial toxicity after childhood cancer; 2) mothers, particularly those who were on, or recently returned from, maternity leave when their child was diagnosed with cancer, experienced ongoing employment impacts.
 
        SES and financial toxicity
Presumably for families living in low SES areas, the income loss associated with reduced working hours, coupled with out-of-pocket costs, were exacerbated by their lack of pre-existing savings and assets. While financial support from families, communities, non-profit organisations and government helped, these payments did not prevent or entirely relieve financial toxicity for these families.
“When we got home we had to buy a wheelchair, we had to buy crutches…It’s put a massive financial burden, and still does… We’ve been home for, what, sixteen months, so there’s still a lot of money to spend on side effects of her treatment.” (Mother of a childhood cancer survivor)
Family SES should be taken into account when assessing and determining the financial toxicity associated with childhood cancer.
 
        Mothers and employment
Mothers who were on maternity leave when their child was diagnosed and those who recently returned to employment after maternity leave reported that they wanted to work but were unable to find suitable employment after treatment completion. A large issue for these mothers was that potential employers thought they had been out of work for too long. The other issue, was that mothers needed employment that would allow flexible working hours and arrangements to work from home in order to attend medical appointments and attend to their child’s other medical needs.
 
“It was probably two years by the time [my son]…could go to day care and not be sick all the time and me go back to work…Basically being out of the [profession] too long apparently and/or too senior…So it’s been incredibly frustrating trying to get work.” (Mother of a childhood cancer survivor)
 
The way forward
Even families in a high-income country with universal healthcare can experience detrimental financial and employment impacts of childhood cancer several years after treatment completion.
Clinical staff could more consistently assess families’ financial toxicity and refer to financial counsellors to assist with financial decision-making. This referral could occur during treatment completion as a potential preventative measure.
Flexible workplace agreements appear important for parents of children with cancer, and may be particularly important for mothers returning to work after their child’s treatment completion. Cancer-related disruptions are likely to continue for years after treatment completion. Organisations should therefore offer flexibility to parents where possible (e.g. working from home and time in lieu).
These measures are essential to ensure we avoid long-term financial and employment inequalities between families with and without childhood cancer.
 
This blog post was written by Dr Lauren Kelada. The original manuscript has been published in Pediatric Blood & Cancer at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pbc.28345