Abstract 13117: Gender Parity in High Impact Cardiology Journals

Abstract

Background: Despite advances in representation of women in medical training, women continue to be underrepresented in cardiology, particularly in senior roles of authorship and leadership. Analyzing trends in high-impact cardiology journals can highlight underrepresentation of women and help elucidate barriers to female representation in academic cardiology. Methods and Results: Using the SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SCR), we analyzed 20 journals (31,540 total articles) in cardiology and cardiovascular medicine with the highest total citations from January 1 st 2018 to October 31 st 2021 for gender distribution of editorial staff and authorship. Gender of individuals was classified using biographical information from public and personal media sources. In cases of ambiguity, Genderize.io was used to help predict gender at probability of ≥95%. Our data demonstrated that 27% of articles had women as first authors and 20% as senior authors. Men constituted the majority of both first authors (73%) and senior authors (80%). The editorial staff was 77% men, with women accounting for 23%. Only 10% of editors-in-chief were women. There was a statistically significant negative correlation between the percentage of women first authors and percentage of men on the editorial board. There was no statistical significance between journal impact factor and percentage of men and women as authors. Overall, female authorship increased from 26% first and 19% senior authors in 2018 to 29% first and 22% senior authors in 2021. Conclusion: Women are significantly under-represented in the field of cardiology as first or senior authors, editorial board members, and editors-in-chief in the top medical journals. Although there has been a slight uptrend in percentage of women occupying leading publishing roles, parity with men is still a work in progress. Additional work is needed to identify and address barriers to publishing and academic advancement for women physicians in cardiology.