339 Gender Concordance and Publication Productivity Within Neurosurgical Focus: A Ten-Year Review

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The “glass ceiling” phenomenon describes how female representation in leadership positions has remained stagnant despite an increase in the number of trainees. Mentorship from female role models has been hypothesized to influence academic productivity. To our knowledge, trends in gender representation among editorial boards of neurosurgical journals remain undescribed. Neurosurgical Focus publishes monthly issues which are peer-reviewed by an invited group of topic editors based on their expertise in the field. METHODS: Publicly available data were collected from the Journal of Neurosurgery: Focus website from January 2013 to December 2022. Themes were dichotomized into technical or non-technical themes. Female gender concordant publications were defined as publications having females in both first and senior authorship. Gender was assessed using pronouns based on authors’ university profile and an artificial intelligence platform in case of ambiguity. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated using Chi-squared and Fisher’s exact test. RESULTS: The number of female editors and gender concordant authors increased over time (P < 0.05). Women accounted for =50% of the editorial board on non-technical themes relevant to education and gender diversity. Having a female senior author was associated with higher publication productivity for original research and review articles among female authors (OR = 13.73, 95% CI = 1.74-394.31, P < 0.05). The odds of having female gender concordant publications were higher with a female editor (OR = 4.05, 95% CI= 1.38-12.92, P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Mentorship and representation among editorial boards play a crucial role in enhancing academic productivity among women. This paper provides evidence that Neurosurgical Focus increased female gender concordant publications by increasing female editors over time because of their efforts to increase female representation. Initiatives to increase female representation and mentorship will help overcome the glass ceiling phenomenon.