1166 Female Authorship of Major Gastroenterology Society Guidelines and Technical Reviews

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Authorship in gastroenterology society guidelines and technical reviews may aid academic advancement. Challenges facing women in academic gastroenterology have gained recent attention, and there may be a disparity in authorship of these documents. The purpose of this study was to analyze the proportion of female authors of major gastroenterology society guidelines and technical reviews in comparison to males. METHODS: American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD), American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), and American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) guidelines and technical reviews were identified from online materials. Documents were included from 2007 to 2018. The sex of each author, and the total number of guideline authors were abstracted. The number of female authors was compared to the total number of authors. We also examined the proportion of guidelines and technical reviews with female first authors. The time period was broken into three equal periods: 2007-2010, 2011-2014 and 2015-2018. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics using Excel (Version 16.23). The Cochrane-Armitage trend test was used to compare the proportion of female authors between time periods. RESULTS: Eighty-three guidelines and technical reviews from 2007 to 2018 were identified. A total of 425 authors were identified after combining author totals of each guideline and technical review while excluding duplicates. Eighty-eight (21%) of authors were women. The total percentage of guideline and technical review authors who were women varied according to each society and over time but remained persistently below that of men (see Figure 1). The proportion of female authors of AASLD guidelines increased from 21% in 2007-2010 to 34% in 2015-2018 (P = 0.042). Female authorship was stable across time for ACG guidelines (20%, 16%, 18%; P = 0.713). For AGA guideline and technical reviews, female authorship declined from 24% in 2011-2014 to 13% in 2015-2018 (P = 0.045). The majority of first authors of guidelines and technical reviews for each society were male (see Figure 2). CONCLUSION: There were significant disparities in female authorship of guidelines and technical reviews by the AASLD, ACG and AGA. There was a statistically significant increase in female authorship over the past ten years only for AASLD guidelines. Addressing disparities in guideline and technical review authorship may promote academic advancement for female gastroenterologists.