Gender distribution among surgical journals’ editorial boards: Empowering women surgeon scientists

Abstract

Background: Gender disparities still exist in the field of academic surgery. Women face additional obstacles obtaining high-ranking, surgical academia positions compared to men, and this may extend to the appointment of editorial board members. We aim to evaluate the gender distribution of editorial board members, associate editors, and editors-in-chief of top US surgical journals and to recommend interventions, which can promote equitable gender representation among editorial boards. Methods: The study is a cross-sectional analysis using publicly available data regarding the number and proportion of female editorial board members, associate editors, and editors-in-chief from 42 US surgical journals. Descriptive statistics and linear regression were performed with significance defined as P < .05. Results: Of 2,836 editorial board members from 42 US surgical journals, 420 (14.8%) were women. Of 881 associate editors, 118 (13.3%) were women. Only 2/42 (4.8%) of editors-in-chief were women. The mean proportions of female editorial board members and associate editors were 14.5% and 19.5%, respectively. No significant associations were found between the 2019 Scimago Journal & Country Rank indicator nor the 2019 impact factor and the proportion of female editorial board members and female associate editors after adjusting for author H-index. Conclusion: Gender disparities are evident in academic surgery, and women comprise a minority of US surgical editorial board members, associate editors, and editors-in-chief. The implementation of women mentorship from senior faculty on behalf of senior residents and junior faculty, as well as journalfacilitated pipeline programs, can diversify editorial board members by increasing women representation and reduce disparities in surgical journal editorial boards.

Gender disparity on editorial boards of major urology journals

“…8 In addition, our findings on the increased proportion of women in female and pediatric urology are in keeping with the demographic data from the American Board of Urology. 8 This trend may be further explained by the availability of mentorship during residency .9 Among the women EB members, all but one were from high-income countries. This highlights an additional layer of disparity that exists among women EB members.…”

“…6 Despite the percentage of women EB members almost doubling within five years, it remains lower than other specialties such as general surgery (18.3%) and plastic surgery (18.2%). 8 It is, however, higher than neurosurgery (8.3%) and orthopedic surgery (6.1%), two surgical subspecialties that are historically known to be predominantly male. 8 In addition, our findings on the increased proportion of women in female and pediatric urology are in keeping with the demographic data from the American Board of Urology.…”

“…8 It is, however, higher than neurosurgery (8.3%) and orthopedic surgery (6.1%), two surgical subspecialties that are historically known to be predominantly male. 8 In addition, our findings on the increased proportion of women in female and pediatric urology are in keeping with the demographic data from the American Board of Urology. 8 This trend may be further explained by the availability of mentorship during residency .9 Among the women EB members, all but one were from high-income countries.…”

“…This phenomenon describes the loss of women at various levels prior to the application and selection of EB members: gender biases, persistent unequal recruitment of women into surgical residency, low retention of women in academic surgery and unbalanced representation of women at high faculty positions. 8 Solutions to our data-proven issue of disparity are dependent on the selection criteria of EBs, which themselves constitute a beneficial area for further exploration.…”

Gender distribution among transplant journal editorial members: a call to empower women in academic medicine

“…While temporal trend could not be examined, women were found to be a minority across editorial positions in transplantation journals regardless of quartile. Previous literature found that surgical journals had a lower mean proportion of women editorial board members and associate women editors at 18.3% and 20.1%, respectively [7]. Interestingly, women may be better represented in transplantation, a subspecialty under both medicine and surgery.…”