Health Economics emerged as a topic and sub-discipline in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Until the 1980s it was dominated by men - both in terms of numbers of academics employed and their prominence as heads of units, positions on editorial boards and organisation committees and their contributions to events. Since then it has been a relative success story for gender equality, unlike other economics sub-disciplines. This paper uses mixed methods to identify and examine the challenges and opportunities encountered in the move towards a more balanced gender representation in academic health economics, and uptake of leadership opportunities by women. It examines individual level data (CVs, 16 focused oral history interviews and a wider set conducted for a related project) as well as analyses of conference participation, authorship/publication citation rankings, editor roles of two key journals and a Health Economists Study Group (HESG) member survey - the UK's Health Economics association (n.450
responses from 43 women and 30 men). Key factors that enabled women to gain visibility and reputation within the academic discipline of health economics include: the relative protection offered by new health economics units from the culture in mainstream economics departments
entry into health economics at masters level from other disciplines
mentoring to support career progression
increasing number of women in leadership roles
wider opportunities for health economists within academia, government and industry
changes to the format and culture of networking events such as HESG bi-annual meetings.