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Cancer incidence and mortality estimates for 25 cancers are presented for the 40 countries in the four United Nations-defined areas of Europe and for the European Union (EU-27) for 2012.

We used statistical models to estimate national incidence and mortality rates in 2012 from recently-published data, predicting incidence and mortality rates for the year 2012 from recent trends, wherever possible. The estimated rates in 2012 were applied to the correspond- ing population estimates to obtain the estimated numbers of new cancer cases and deaths in Europe in 2012.

There were an estimated 3.45 million new cases of cancer (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) and 1.75 million deaths from cancer in Europe in 2012. The most common cancer sites were cancers of the female breast (464,000 cases); followed by colorectal (447,000), both women and men; prostate (417,000) and lung (410,000), men. These four cancers represent half of the overall burden of cancer in Europe. The most common causes of death from cancer were cancers of the lung (353,000 deaths), colorectal (215,000), breast (131,000) and stomach (107,000). In the Euro- pean Union, the estimated numbers of new cases of cancer were approximately 1.4 million 

There is growing evidence that stereotype- based bias functions like a habit as an ingrained pattern of thoughts and behaviors.Changing a habit is a multistep process. Successful habit-changing interventions not only increase awareness of problematic behavior but must motivate individuals to learn and deliberately practice new behaviors until they become habitual. We conducted a pair-matched, single-blind, cluster randomized, controlled study at the University of Wisconsin– Madison (UW-Madison) comparing a gender bias habit-reducing intervention delivered separately to 46 departments with 46 control departments. The control departments were offered the intervention after its effects were assessed in the experimental departments (“wait-list controls”). Participants were faculty in these 92 medicine, science, or engineering departments.  Faculty in departments exposed to the gender-bias-habit- reducing intervention demonstrated immediate boosts in several proximal requisites of intentional behavioral change: personal awareness, internal motivation, perception of benefits, and self-efficacy to engage in gender-equity- promoting behaviors. The sustained increase in self-efficacy beliefs at three months provides strong evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Self-efficacy is the cornerstone of widely accepted behavioural change theories.Positive outcome expectations are also important in promoting behavioural change and increased at three days after the intervention. 

Following early limitations on women becoming educated in and practicing dentistry, the proportion of women enrolled in dental schools around the world has increased dramatically over the past decades. Dental schools have undergone a transformation from male dominance to almost equal numbers in the United States and female predominance in other countries including the United Kingdom. However, this change in student gender distribution has not been matched among academic leaders. Data from across the globe indicate a clear disproportion in favor of males in leadership positions in dentistry—and the more senior the position, the greater the imbalance. This article reviews the evolving changes in gender distribution across the landscape of dental education, research, and practice and some initiatives to address the gender imbalance in leadership. Such initiatives can help to ensure that, in the future, the profession benefits from the spectrum of influences brought to bear by the leadership of both women and men.

This study assesses the midcareer outcomes of a highly select cohort of able and motivated physician–researchers. Many of its findings are heartening. A high proportion of respondents reported maintaining careers in academic medicine and continued to spend a meaningful proportion of their working time on research, as one would hope within such a highly select population who received considerable societal resources to support their career development as medical researchers. Even though only a minority of respondents had gone on to receive R01 funding from the NIH, the vast majority had achieved promotions in academic rank and had published numerous papers since their K award. The study did not allowed us to consider a more comprehensive measure of success. In this study, we considered a composite measure, for which particular success in any one area—grant funding, publications, or administrative leadership—sufficed. Unfortunately, we observed that male gender was an independent, significant predictor of greater success, even using this broader definition, within this highly select population.

A number of explanations are possible for this finding. Some studies have suggested that much of the sex difference observed in academic career outcomes is related to whether or not an individual is a parent, with mothers particularly less likely to succeed. In this study, we did observe that within this highly select group, women were less likely to have children than men, perhaps because some of these women perceived that motherhood is particularly challenging for women who wish to succeed in such careers, or perhaps because the conflict between the tenure clock and the biological clock is more pronounced for females than for males. However, in this study we did not observe an interaction between gender and being a parent; even women without children were less likely to succeed than men. This suggests that gender differences in academic medicine may not be related exclusively to motherhood.

Another possibility is that even within this highly select population, the men prioritized greater career success more than the women did. Although this seems unlikely to be the sole explanation within a population of individuals who sought competitive career development awards as fully mature adults, it is possible, for example, that these researchers internalized to some degree society’s gendered expectations of career success, and these expectations may contribute to some of the difference observed. Moreover, stereotype threat may play a role even in this highly accomplished group, and women may react to competitive situations or to the rejection of a paper or grant in systematically different ways than men.