Gender differences in pulmonology and critical care authorship and editorial boards

Abstract

Objective This study aims to characterize the gender distribution of first authors, senior authors, and editorial board members across several high-impact factor journals in PCCM. Methods In this cross-sectional study, we analysed gender disparities in critical care authorship and editorial boards, based on publications from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021 from the top 20 high impact journals based on the Journal of Citation Reports. Results Among 20 journals (median impact factor of 6.66), 25% of editors-in-chief and 28.8% of editorial board members were female. From 2019 to 2021, a total of 23,994 articles were published. Female first authors and last authors made up 29.1% and 21.2% of the authorship, respectively (n = 6637 articles). Conclusions Our study demonstrates significant gender disparities in critical care authorship and editorial boards, with males predominantly filling the roles of editors in chief, editorial members, and first and senior authors. Despite this significant difference in gender distribution, there was no statistically significant correlation between authorship and editor gender.