Representation of women as editors in the Cochrane collaboration.

Abstract

There is considerable gender disparity in editorial boards of medical journals. Being an editor in a Cochrane review group (CRG), like being an editor in a medical journal, is an indirect representation of one's reputation and leadership abilities in a particular specialty. The aim of the study was to analyze the representation of women editors on the editorial teams of CRG's and the Central Editorial Unit (CEU) of the Cochrane Collaboration. Information about editorial team members of CRGs and the CEU was extracted from respective websites. Gender of the individual was determined by inspection of names, individual profile description or photographs in the CRG or institutional webpage, social networking sites and internet search. Data was validated by two authors independently and differences sorted by consensus. A total of 788 editors across all CRGs and the CEU with an overall 371 females (47.1%) and 417 (52.9%) males were identified. of the CEU editors, 62.5% were females. There were 68 coordinating editors (35.3% females), and 62 managing editors (56% females), who provided leadership to the CRGs. Eighty-four percent of trial search coordinators were found to be females. Ten CRGs had 75% or more of its editors as females while 7 CRGs had less than or equal to 25% female editors. The representation of women editors in the Cochrane Collaboration was found to be better than in editorial boards of medical journals. There is still scope for improvement to ensure better gender diversity across all roles and in all CRG's.