No abstract

No abstract

Historically, authors in the biomedical field have often conflated the terms sex and gender in their research significantly limiting the reproducibility of the reported results. In the present study, we investigated current reporting practices around gender in biomedical publications that claim the identification of “gender differences”. Our systematic research identified 1117 articles for the year 2019. After random selection of 400 publications and application of inclusion criteria, 302 articles were included for analysis. Using a systematic evaluation grid, we assessed the provided methodological detail in the operationalization of gender and the provision of gender-related information throughout the manuscript. Of the 302 articles, 69 (23%) solely addressed biological sex. The remaining articles investigated gender, yet only 15 (6.5%) offered reproducible information about the operationalization of the gender dimension studied. Followingly, these manuscripts also provided more detailed gender-specific background, analyses and discussions compared to the ones not detailing the operationalization of gender. Overall, our study demonstrated persistent inadequacies in the conceptual understanding and methodological operationalization of gender in the biomedical field. Methodological rigor correlated with more nuanced and informative reporting, highlighting the need for appropriate training to increase output quality and reproducibility in the field.

Mandatory teaching of sex-and gender-specific medicine (SGSM) is an essential tool to prepare future physicians for clinical care. Textbooks still play an important role for physician training in Germany. They are one of the main sources of structured and validated information. The present study was conducted to investigate the incorporation of SGSM knowledge about myocardial infarction (MI) into the standard cardiology textbooks used for teaching by German medical faculties. Additionally, the analyzed books were screened for implicit and explicit gender bias in a qualitative manner. Ten books were selected for analysis; they were issued in the years 2008-2012 and present in 30% or more of the 36 German academic medical libraries. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of content, language, and visual representations of the sexes in discussions of MI were conducted. All of the analyzed books describe the symptoms present in male bodies as the norm and 7 of the 10 books describe women as ''special'' or ''abnormal''; hence, they fail to address the unique experience of women suffering from MI. Sex and gender bias are widely present and the depiction of women in German cardiology textbooks is discriminatory.

No abstract