PUBBLICAZIONE/PUBLICATION

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  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender in authorship and editorship in medical education journals: A bibliometric review Open PDF 
    (2021)
    Madden, Caoimhe
    ;
    O'Malley, Róisín
    ;
    O'Connor, Paul
    ;
    O'Dowd, Emily
    ;
    Byrne, Dara
    CONTEXT: Gender bias has been observed in the authorship and editorship of academic literature in varied medical specialties. This is important as peer-reviewed publications, and participation on editorial boards, are closely related to academic productivity and advancement. The aim of this paper was to examine whether gender-based disparities in authorship and editorship exist in leading medical education journals. METHODS: A retrospective bibliometric review was conducted of articles published at eight different time-points across a 49-year time period (specifically: 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2019) in four leading medical education journals (Academic Medicine, BMC Medical Education, Medical Education and Medical Teacher). First and last (as a proxy for senior) author gender was determined for each article, along with the gender of the 2019 editorial board members of each journal. Chi-square tests for trend were conducted to examine variations in author gender distributions over time, and binomial tests of proportions were conducted to examine gender distributions in authorship and editorship in 2019. Logistic regression analyses were carried out to determine factors that predicted the odds of authorship by women. RESULTS: A total of 5749 articles were included. A significant trend of increased women as first and last authors was observed across all journals. The percentage of women first authors increased from 6.6% in 1970 to 53.7% in 2019 (P < .001), and women last authors increased from 9.5% in 1970 to 46% in 2019 (P < .001). Overall, the distributions of women first authors, last authors and editorial board members in 2019 indicated greater gender parity than many other fields of medicine. CONCLUSIONS: Positive progress towards gender parity has been made in medical education scholarship. However, future research and efforts are needed to ensure the continued participation, and highlighting, of women in medical education scholarship and to address other factors which may hinder academic advancement for women in this field.
  • Item type:Publication,
    The impact of double-blind peer review on gender bias in scientific publishing: a systematic review Open PDF 
    (2022)
    Kern-Goldberger, Adina R.
    ;
    James, Richard
    ;
    Berghella, Vincenzo
    ;
    Miller, Emily S.
    OBJECTIVE: Gender-based bias during journal peer review can lead to publication biases and perpetuate gender inequality in science. Double-blind peer review, in which the names of authors and reviewers are masked, may present an opportunity for scientific literature to increase equity and reduce gender-based biases. This systematic review of studies evaluates the impact of double-blind vs single-blind peer review on the publication rates by perceived author gender. DATA SOURCES: The PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus electronic databases were searched using the terms "blind," "peer review," "gender," "woman," and "author." All published literature in the English language from database inception through 2020 was queried. STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Prospective experimental and observational studies comparing double-blind to single-blind peer review strategies examining impact on publication decisions by author gender were included. STUDY APPRAISAL AND SYNTHESIS METHODS: The extracted data were primarily descriptive and included information on study design, sample size, primary outcome, major findings, and scientific discipline. The studies were characterized on the basis of design and whether the results demonstrated an impact of double-blind peer review on review scores and publication decision by perceived author gender. This study was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews or PROSPERO. RESULTS: In total, 1717 articles were identified, 123 were reviewed, and 8 were included, encompassing 5 prospective experimental studies and 3 observational studies. Four studies demonstrated a difference in the acceptance rate or review score on the basis of perceived author gender, whereas the other 4 studies demonstrated no differences when the author gender was anonymized. CONCLUSION: Studies evaluating the impact of double-blind peer review on author gender demonstrate mixed results, but there is reasonable evidence that gender bias may exist in scientific publishing and that double-blinding can mitigate its impact. Further evaluation of the processes in place to create the body of evidence that clinicians and researchers rely on is essential to reduce bias, particularly in female-majority fields such as obstetrics and gynecology.
  • Item type:Publication,
    An International Survey of Female Dental Students' Perceptions About Gender Bias and Sexual Misconduct at Four Dental Schools. Open PDF 
    (2018)
    Ivanoff, Chris S.
    ;
    Luan, Diana M.
    ;
    Hottel, Timothy L.
    ;
    Andonov, Bogomil
    ;
    Ricci Volpato, Luiz Evaristo
    As women enter the dental profession in increasing numbers in North America and around the world, the questions of how they perceive their environment and what kind of barriers they face are important subjects to be addressed. The aim of this study was to assess and compare women dental students' perceptions of bias in their environment and experiences of sexual misconduct at one dental school in each of four countries. In spring 2017, 1,293 female students at four dental schools in the U.S., Bulgaria, Brazil, and India were invited to participate in a 24-item survey developed by researchers from the four countries; 990 students responded (response rate 76.6%). The overall majority of the respondents reported thinking the admissions process at their school was fair (79.7%); but a fifth of U.S. and Brazilian students perceived their school was not fully embracing of females, with most Bulgarian students agreeing (87.2%) and all Indian students disagreeing. Most respondents overall perceived that male faculty members did not favor male students (79.5%) and did not think there was discrimination against female students by faculty (87.1%), but half of the U.S. respondents reported feeling discriminated against by both male faculty and male students. When the responses "I've been verbally harassed" and "I've been somewhat verbally harassed" were combined, 10.1% of the U.S. respondents reported verbal harassment, compared to 20% of Brazilian, 15% of Bulgarian, and 2% of Indian respondents. When the responses "I've been sexually assaulted" and "I've been somewhat sexually assaulted" were combined, 6% of U.S. respondents reported being sexually assaulted, compared to 6.2% of Brazilian, 2.5% of Bulgarian, and none of the Indian respondents. Almost half (46.9%) of these students overall perceived their school was not or only somewhat vigilant about issues of sexual misconduct, and only 54% said they would feel comfortable or very comfortable reporting misconduct. These results suggest that academic dental institutions in all four countries need improvements to make their environments more equitable and free of bias and sexual misconduct.
  • Item type:Publication,
    The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented? Open PDF 
    (2018)
    Holman, Luke
    ;
    Stuart-Fox, Devi
    ;
    Hauser, Cindy E.
    Women comprise a minority of the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) workforce. Quantifying the gender gap may identify fields that will not reach parity without intervention, reveal underappreciated biases, and inform benchmarks for gender balance among conference speakers, editors, and hiring committees. Using the PubMed and arXiv databases, we estimated the gender of 36 million authors from >100 countries publishing in >6000 journals, covering most STEMM disciplines over the last 15 years, and made a web app allowing easy access to the data (https://lukeholman.github.io/genderGap/). Despite recent progress, the gender gap appears likely to persist for generations, particularly in surgery, computer science, physics, and maths. The gap is especially large in authorship positions associated with seniority, and prestigious journals have fewer women authors. Additionally, we estimate that men are invited by journals to submit papers at approximately double the rate of women. Wealthy countries, notably Japan, Germany, and Switzerland, had fewer women authors than poorer ones. We conclude that the STEMM gender gap will not close without further reforms in education, mentoring, and academic publishing.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Ladies First? Not So Fast: Linguistic Sexism in Peer-Reviewed Research. Open PDF 
    (2018)
    Willis, Malachi
    ;
    Jozkowski, Kristen N.
    The words we use reflect and influence our interpretation of the world. The role of gender within a language varies; biases based on social gender are referred to as linguistic sexism. Male firstness is the practice of persistently ordering masculine terms before feminine terms. Because academic writing is mandated to be free of bias, peer-reviewed research should not contain any form of linguistic sexism. To assess the presence of male firstness in academic writing, we examined 862 contemporary articles from 10 social science journals across three disciplines: sexuality, health, and psychology. To assess male firstness, we tallied common gendered pairs (e.g., "women and men"; "male and female") and calculated percentages indicating how often men were presented before women. We found that male firstness bias was present in each of the 10 journals. For individual journals, the percentage of gendered phrases that presented masculine terms first ranged from 57.7% to 88.8%. Sexuality and health journals demonstrated less linguistic sexism than psychology; however, there were no consistent trends between journals within each discipline. We discuss the current presence of male firstness in academic journals and the issues this bias triggers. Recommendations for reducing linguistic sexism in peer-reviewed research are also discussed.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender and racial/ethnic disparities in rates of publishing and inclusion in scientific-review processes. Open PDF 
    (Educational Publishing Foundation, 2021)
    Willis, Malachi
    ;
    Bridges, Ana J.
    ;
    Jozkowski, Kristen N.
    Sexism and racism in academia have contributed to women and people of color being underrepresented at increasing levels of the academic hierarchy. We investigated whether people with socially marginalized identities experience disparities regarding rates of publishing and inclusion in the scientific-review process. Using a sample of academics in psychology departments at research-focused universities in the United States (<i>n</i> = 885), we found gender disparities for PhD holders and racial/ethnic disparities for graduate students. Specifically, female PhD holders and graduate students of color reported fewer publications and were less likely to be included in the scientific-review process compared with male PhD holders and White graduate students, respectively. Differences in research activity by gender and race/ethnicity in a contemporary sample of psychologists reflected a 'leaky pipeline' that persists in psychology departments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
  • Item type:Publication,
    Ending Gender Inequality in Cardiovascular Clinical Trial Leadership: JACC Review Topic of the Week Open PDF 
    (2021)
    Van Spall, Harriette G. C.
    ;
    Lala, Anuradha
    ;
    Deering, Thomas F.
    ;
    Casadei, Barbara
    ;
    Zannad, Faiez
    Women are under-represented as leaders of cardiovascular randomized controlled trials, representing 1 in 10 lead authors of cardiovascular trials published in high-impact journals. Although the proportion of cardiovascular specialists who are women has increased in recent years, the proportion of cardiovascular clinical trialists who are women has not. This gap, underpinned by systemic sexism, has not been adequately addressed. The benefits of diverse randomized controlled trial leadership extend to patients and professionals. In this position statement, we present strategies adopted by some organizations to end gender inequality in research leadership. We offer an actionable roadmap for early-career researchers, scientists, academic institutions, professional societies, trial sponsors, and journals to follow, with the goal of harnessing the strength of women and under-represented groups as research leaders and facilitating a just culture in the cardiovascular clinical trial enterprise.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Acceptance or decline of requests to review manuscripts: A gender-based approach from a public health journal. Open PDF 
    (2018)
    Felícitas Domínguez-Berjón, María
    ;
    Godoy, Pere
    ;
    Ruano-Ravina, Alberto
    ;
    Negrín, Miguel Ángel
    ;
    Vives-Cases, Carmen
    Peer review in the scientific publication is widely used as a method to identify valuable knowledge. Editors have the task of selecting appropriate reviewers. We assessed the reasons given by potential reviewers for declining a request to review, and the factors associated with acceptance, taking into account the difference in the sex of the reviewer. This is a descriptive study of the review requests from a public health journal (Gaceta Sanitaria) with an enforced gender policy. The dependent variables were requests, response to requests, reasons potential reviewers gave for declining requests and time to review. We carried out a descriptive analysis of these indicators and applied logistic regression to analyze factors (professional and research/review experience) associated with having done at least one review in 2014-2015. Results were stratified by sex. Journal editors sent 1,775 requests to 773 potential reviewers; 52.3% of whom reviewed at least one manuscript. Of the 396 declined requests (22.3%), the most common reasons were lack of time and of experience (88.1%). No differences were observed by sex. In the multivariate analysis, having reviewed for the journal in previous years showed the strongest association with acceptance. Specific analyses of data on requests reviewers may be useful for improving the acceptance rates to review. This study did not show gender differences in several indicators of the reviewing process.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Gender disparities among publications within international sexual medicine urology journals and the impact of blinding in the review process Open PDF 
    (2024)
    Burg, Madeleine L.
    ;
    Kohli, Priya
    ;
    Ha, Nhi
    ;
    Mora, Richard
    ;
    Kurup, Trisha
    BACKGROUND: While female urologists are known to publish at less frequency than their male peers, The Journal of Sexual Medicine was reported to have among the highest growth in female authorship from 2002 to 2020 in urology journals. AIM: We sought to assess the frequency of female authorship in sexual medicine journals worldwide and the factors that affect this, including the blinded/unblinded review process. METHODS: Eleven sexual medicine journals were assessed for geographic location, peer review method, and SCImago Journal Rank citation index (a metric of citation frequency and prestige). Journals were grouped into top, middle, and bottom quartiles based on metric score. Web of Science was used to access the publications' first, second, last, and corresponding authors from the past 5 years. An internet search or Gender-API.com was used to determine the gender identities of authors. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression models were performed. OUTCOMES: Outcomes included the likelihood of female authorship (first, second, last, and corresponding) based on journal location and ranking, the clustering of female authors, the journal's peer review process, and the frequency of female editorial board members. RESULTS: Overall, 8938 publications were identified. Women represented 30.7%, 31.3%, 21.3%, and 18.7% of the first, second, last, and corresponding authors, respectively; gender was unable to be assessed for 2.6%, 17.2%, 7.3%, and 2.7%. On univariate analysis, journals from North America, in the top quartile, and with a double-blind review process were more likely to have female authors (P < .001). On multivariate analysis, articles were more likely to have a female first author if they had a double-blind peer review process (odds ratio [OR], 1.20; 95% CI, 1.02-1.40), a female second author (OR, 2.54; 95% CI, 2.26-2.85), or a female corresponding author (OR, 7.80; 95% CI, 6.69-9.10). CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Gender-concordant mentoring and universal double-blind manuscript review processes may minimize the impact of gender bias and increase female authorship rates, in turn producing more diverse research. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: This is the first study assessing female authorship in sexual medicine journals. Limitations include not assessing every author listed on articles and being unable to determine gender identities for some authors. CONCLUSION: Female authorship rates are higher than reported rates of practicing female urologists but still lower than their male peers. Female authors were more likely to be published in journals with double-blind peer review processes and when publishing with additional female authors.