Disparities in gender distribution within editorial boards of pharmacy journals

Abstract

IntroductionSpecialties within the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have demonstrated that disparities exist within editorial boards of their respective professional journals. However, limited data of this observation exists within the scope of pharmacy practice. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the distribution of gender across editorial board members of several pharmacy journals.MethodsIn this cross‐sectional study, a total of 20 pharmacy journals were selected, using a combination of several factors including the SCImago Journal and Country Rank as of March 2019 and prominence across various organizations within the discipline. Publicly available information from the official website of each respective journal was evaluated to determine the proportion of males and females serving as members of the editorial board. An Internet search was conducted to confirm this demographic for those individuals where gender could not be determined. Descriptive statistics were used to quantify qualitative variables.ResultsData were sufficient to determine the gender of editorial members in all 20 pharmacy journals. Eight hundred and thirteen individuals were identified to serve on editorial boards, of which 326 (40%) were female, with a range of 8% to 63% per journal. Only four journals (20%) had a female editor‐in‐chief.ConclusionDisparities in gender distribution exist among editorial boards of pharmacy journals. Future efforts should focus on increasing the proportion of women serving as both members of the editorial board and as editor‐in‐chief to drive diversity, minimize implicit bias, and possibly enhance the content and quality of publications.

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