Gender disparity between authors in leading medical journals during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional review.
BMJ Open
; 11(7): e051224, 2021 07 14.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1311170
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
Evaluate gender differences in authorship of COVID-19 articles in high-impact medical journals compared with other topics.DESIGN:
Cross-sectional review. DATA SOURCES Medline database. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA Articles published from 1 January to 31 December 2020 in the seven leading general medical journals by impact factor. Article types included primary research, reviews, editorials and commentaries. DATA EXTRACTION Key data elements were whether the study topic was related to COVID-19 and names of the principal and the senior authors. A hierarchical approach was used to determine the likely gender of authors. Logistic regression assessed the association of study characteristics, including COVID-19 status, with authors' likely gender; this was quantified using adjusted ORs (aORs).RESULTS:
We included 2252 articles, of which 748 (33.2%) were COVID-19-related and 1504 (66.8%) covered other topics. A likely gender was determined for 2138 (94.9%) principal authors and 1890 (83.9%) senior authors. Men were significantly more likely to be both principal (1364 men; 63.8%) and senior (1332 men; 70.5%) authors. COVID-19-related articles were not associated with the odds of men being principal (aOR 0.99; 95% CI 0.81 to 1.21; p=0.89) or senior authors (aOR 0.96; 95% CI 0.78 to 1.19; p=0.71) relative to other topics. Articles with men as senior authors were more likely to have men as principal authors (aOR 1.49; 95% CI 1.21 to 1.83; p<0.001). Men were more likely to author articles reporting original research and those with corresponding authors based outside the USA and Europe.CONCLUSIONS:
Women were substantially under-represented as authors among articles in leading medical journals; this was not significantly different for COVID-19-related articles. Study limitations include potential for misclassification bias due to the name-based analysis. Results suggest that barriers to women's authorship in high-impact journals during COVID-19 are not significantly larger than barriers that preceded the pandemic and that are likely to continue beyond it. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER CRD42020186702.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Periodicals as Topic
/
Authorship
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
BMJ Open
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bmjopen-2021-051224
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