Gender Differences in Research Productivity among Academic Psychiatrists in Canada

Abstract

Objectives: Gender inequity in academic medicine persists despite increases in the number of women physicians. We sought to explore gender differences in research productivity for academic psychiatrists in Canada. Methods: In a cross-sectional study of the 3379 psychiatrists in all 17 university departments of psychiatry in Canada, research productivity, as measured by the h-index and number of publications, was compared between women and men using a negative log binomial regression model to generate relative rates (RRs), adjusted for career duration (aRR). Findings were stratified by academic rank, institution region, and institution size. A subanalysis of those with 10 or more publications was conducted as a proxy for identifying physicians on a research track. Results: Women (43% of the sample) had a lower mean (standard deviation) h-index than men (2.87 [6.49] vs. 5.31 [11.1]; aRR, 0.62; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.54 to 0.72). Differences were significant only for junior faculty and not for associate and full professors. Comparison by number of publications followed a similar pattern (aRR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.55). Among those with 10 or more publications (n ¼ 721), differences between men and women were smaller than in the overall cohort for both the h-index (aRR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.68 to 0.87) and number of publications (aRR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.72). Conclusions: Gender differences in research productivity at the national level in academic psychiatry in Canada support a call to adopt a more systematic approach to promoting equitable opportunities for women in research, especially in early career, to improve diversity and enhance future psychiatric research and discovery. Abré gé Objectifs : L'inégalité entre les sexes en médecine universitaire persiste malgré l'augmentation du nombre de femmes médecins. Nous avons entrepris d'explorer les différences entre les sexes relativement à la productivité en recherche chez les psychiatres universitaires du Canada. Mé thodes : Dans une étude transversale menée auprès de 3379 psychiatres des 17 départements de psychiatrie universitaires du Canada, la productivité en recherche, telle qu'elle est mesurée par l'indice h et le nombre de publications, était comparée entre les femmes et les hommes à l'aide d'un modèle de régression binomiale négative log afin de générer des taux relatifs (TR), ajustés selon la durée de la carrière (TRa). Les résultats ont été stratifiés par rang universitaire, région de l'institution, et taille de l'institution. Une sous-analyse des sujets comptant 10 publications ou plus a été menée à titre de substitut pour identifier les médecins qui sont en voie de recherche.

Gender Disparities in Invited Commentary Authorship in 2459 Medical Journals

“…8,10,11,12,13,14,22,28,29 Some medical specialty–specific studies applied basic controls for a small number of author-level variables. 3,4,5,6,7 Second, using ICC articles as our outcome allowed us to study a particular type of solicited article for a large number of medical journals and with a large sample size. Third, to our knowledge, our study is the first to provide journal-specific estimates of gender disparities for a large number of medical journals using consistent methods alongside all-journal averages.…”

Gender differences in faculty rank among academic physicians: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…One study demonstrated that women continued to have fewer publications after adjusting for career duration (adjusted relative rate 0.46, 95% CI 0.39 to 0.55). 57 For h-index, 41 studies comparing 29 923 men to 12 286 women were included. Men had a higher h-index than women (mean difference 5.97, 95% CI 4.77 to 7.16, p<0.00001, I 2 =98%; online supplemental eFigure 9).…”

“…One study demonstrated that women continued to have a lower h-index after adjusting for career duration (adjusted relative rate 0.62, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.72). 57 For federal research funding, 21 studies comparing 87 205 men to 39 638 women were included. Men were 1.71 times more likely to hold a federal research grant (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.41 to 2.08, p<0.00001, I 2 =88%; online supplemental eFigure 12).…”

Productivity and interdisciplinary impacts of Organized Research Units

“…A substantial body of work in social studies of science finds consistent evidence that women academics have lower publication rates and typically receive fewer citations per publication than men academics (Beaudry & Larivière, 2016;Cameron, White, & Gray, 2016;Chauvin, Mulsant et al, 2019;Ghiasi, Larivière, & Sugimoto, 2015;Larivière, Ni et al, 2013;Symonds, Gemmell et al, 2006;van Arensbergen, van der Weijden, & van den Besselaar, 2012). (I was unable to find any literature that reported findings for nonbinary, genderqueer, or transgender identities.…”

“…(I was unable to find any literature that reported findings for nonbinary, genderqueer, or transgender identities. Chauvin et al (2019) note that they "planned to include faculty identifying as nonbinary or genderqueer in a separate group," but "were unable to identify any such faculty from publicly available data sources.") To control for these gender effects, the online tool genderize.io was used to attribute gender to all authors based on their first or given name.…”