Gender and geography at The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health

Abstract

In February 2019, The Lancet published its seminal special issue Advancing women in science, medicine, and global health, and in doing so reminded us that achieving gender equality in our field was the responsibility of all stakeholders, including medical journals. Women are under-represented as authors, reviewers, and in editorial positions across scientific and medical publishing. The Lancet group committed to addressing this inequality by increasing the representation of women in our work and on our pages. 79% of the editorial staff across the Lancet journals are female (57% of editors in chief) and in 2018, 30% of external editorial board members were women. In The Lancet analysis, 25% of research articles had a female corresponding author, and 34% of all commissioned authors were women. Inspired by our colleagues, we present our gender data for The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health in 2019. Our in-house team is 75% female, and half of our newly updated advisory board are women. We are delighted to report that 60% of our research articles have a female corresponding author, and 53% of our commissioned authors (of Comments, Reviews, and Viewpoints) are women. However, these statistics must be interpreted in the context of our clinical specialty; in the USA and the UK, 75% of all registered paediatricians are women. Our aim is to see this gender distribution reflected on our pages over the next 2 years. We also strive for inclusion beyond gender. With 90% of the world's children living in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), it is imperative that these communities are represented. In 2018 only 3·5% of our commissioned authors were female colleagues from LMICs. We pledged to double that, and this year we have achieved 8% representation (overall 12% of our commissioned content came from LMICs). We will continue to push this agenda in 2020, aiming for 10% of all commissioned authors to be women from low-resource settings. We welcome submissions from all our expert colleagues working in child and adolescent health. Join us, in creating a journal where the voices of all those who contribute to and serve in our community are equally heard.