Gender Disparity in Authorship of Peer Reviewed Medical Publications

Abstract

Background: Women are underrepresented in academic medicine despite an increase in the percentage of female physicians and residents. Publications, grant funding, and leadership experience are considered when hiring and promoting physicians. Our primary objective was to determine whether gender disparity exists in authorship in selected peer-reviewed literature in medical and in surgical specialties in the United States from 2000-2017. Methods: Medical and surgical original research articles from the United States were identified using PubMed. Manuscripts were randomly selected within four different time periods: 2000-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015 and 2016-2017. The gender of the first and last authors determined and the journal's impact factor recorded. The ACGME and AAMC databases were used to determine the percent of female residents, attendings, and academic leadership positions. Findings: Within the 1120 articles reviewed, 31.6% of first authors and 19.4% of last authors were women. Female first and last authors increased over time and authorship was proportional to the number of women in academic medicine in the studied specialties (p-value=0.78). There was no difference in the journal's impact factors when comparing male and female authors (p-value= 0.64). On subgroup analysis of medical and surgical subspecialties, results remained unchanged. Interpretation: Gender disparities in medicine have improved but substantial disparities in leadership persist. Women publish research at a rate proportional to the number of academic female physicians. Disparities in leadership roles are unlikely explained by differences in publications. Funding Statement: None of the authors received any funding in order to conduct this study. Declaration of Interests: None of the listed authors have any conflict of interest to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: Missing