Gender disparity in critical care publications: a novel Female First Author Index

Abstract

Background Bibliometric analyses show gender bias against women in scientific publications and citations. We hypothesized that a metric of an individual senior author’s inclusivity of women as first authors in critical care publications would predict gender inequality. Methods Using PubMed and Web of Science, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of original research publications in critical care from 2008 to 2018 in 11 specialty and general journals. Gender for first and senior authors was assigned by a gender determination application, and manually if needed. For all senior authors we defined the novel Female First Author Index (FFA-index) = #Female first authors in publications by an individual senior author/Total # publications by that senior author. We produced a novel interactive web-based application using the R package Shiny to increase potential utilization of the FFA-index. Results Of 7370 publications, 30.4% had female first authors and 15.5% had female senior authors. After adjustment for impact factor, journal, year of publication, number of authors, country, and gender determination accuracy, female senior authorship was associated with a 1.9-fold increase in female first authorship [OR = 1.85 (95% CI 1.62, 2.11); p < 0.001] compared with male senior authorship. The mean (SD) FFA-index for all individual senior authors was 30.5 (42.9); with a significant difference in FFA-index between male and female senior authors (27.6 versus 42.5, respectively; p < 0.001). The interactive web-based application (FFA-index App) produces the same FFA-index output as our study results. Conclusions Female representation at prominent authorship positions in critical care publications is still far from achieving gender parity. By creating an authorship index score, we propose a frame of reference for the advancement of female first authorship.

Women as a Growing Force in Critical Care Medicine—the Journal, Profession, and Society

“…When the senior author was a woman, the odds of women coauthors rose substantially, adjusted odds ratio 1.93 (95% CI 1.71-2.17). Chary et al (22) found similar results with significant variation by country for women as first authors, from 6.1% in Japan to 56.6% in Finland. The Canadian Critical Care Trials Group evaluated their publications and found that 37% of authors were women, 13.7% were from a visible minority group, 73% of articles included authors from more than one profession, and more than half were from more than one medical discipline (23).…”

Analysis of gender representation, authorship inflation, and institutional affiliation in abstract acceptance: a 5-year study

“…Despite women comprising over half the US population and over half of US medical students since 2018 [ 25 ], women continue to be underrepresented in most surgical fields and as authors of scientific publications [ 20 , 26 , 27 ]. To better understand the ASE membership, we acquired gender data from ASE leadership.…”

“…After reviewing all abstracts, we used Gender API ( https://gender-api.com/ ), an “application programming interface (API)” software previously used in scientific and market research to estimate man or woman representation based on first name, to code first and last author genders [ 20 ]. The software classifies gender on a binary scale returning the terms “male,” “female,” or “unknown” based on an Internet search algorithm; however, we will use the terms “man” and “woman” in this manuscript to refer to gender as a social and behavioral construct distinct from chromosomal sex.…”

Indicadores de gênero na ciência : estudo bibliométrico da região Norte do Brasil

“…Os autores argumentam que essas descobertas têm implicações importantes para a visibilidade acadêmica e a vantagem cumulativa nas carreiras acadêmicas embora esses padrões possam resultar de diferenças no número de artigos que autores homens e mulheres publicaram, em vez de padrões específicos de gênero de comportamento de autocitação, essa diferença de gênero nas taxas de autocitação permaneceu estável nos últimos 50 anos, apesar do aumento representação das mulheres na academia. Chary et al (2021) comentam que as análises bibliométricas mostram o preconceito de gênero contra as mulheres em publicações e citações científicas. Em vista disso, hipotetizaram que o gênero de um autor sênior seria um preditor importante do gênero do primeiro autor.…”