Do Gender-Based Disparities in Authorship and Editorship Exist in Healthcare Simulation Journals? A Bibliometric Review of the Research

Abstract

Publication in peer-reviewed journals, and serving on editorial boards, is considered an indicator of academic productivity and success, and a means of influencing discourse and practice in a field. This bibliometric review explored gender in authorship, and editorship, across the 3 existing English language, nonspecialty specific healthcare simulation journals. In total, 40.4% of publications had women first authors and 34.4% had women senior authors. There were no differences by journal and no apparent changes over time. Poor participation of women on editorial boards (38.1% of editorial board members were women) was observed. The observed level of representation of women as first and senior authors, and on editorial boards, is comparable with other health sciences domains but nonetheless warrants attention and improvement. Future research examining the profile of those working within simulation or evaluating strategies to improve the participation of women within healthcare simulation research and journals would be of interest.

Gender in authorship and editorship in medical education journals: A bibliometric review

“…Persistent issues include poor support of women, gender stereotypes, sexism and bias in funding awards 19 . Action by both men and women is important; for example, we identified a significant tendency for women first authors and last authors to publish together, reflecting the greater likelihood of a mentor‐mentee relationship among same sex authors that has been identified previously in other specialties 17,25,43 . Although a personal preference for gender concordance may exist, 17 whereby junior and senior women researchers ‘seek out one another’, 43 given the predominance of men in senior roles in academic medicine ‘crossing the gender line’ in mentoring could be imperative for ensuring women's success 17 .…”

“…Although Editor‐in‐Chiefs in 2019 were predominantly men, at least in the small sample of journals we considered, our analysis of editorship overall found that women were only slightly less frequently represented (42.1%) on editorial boards overall than men and that statistically equal numbers between men and women were achieved in three of the four journals examined. These data are more favourable than observed in the editorial board membership of many medical specialties 19,22,25,26 where under‐representation of women on editorial boards has been referred to as a ‘macro‐inequality’ 38 and has been clearly documented for over two decades 39 . Membership on editorial boards is a notable achievement, and provides a unique networking opportunity 40 .…”

“…Best practice guidelines for bibliometric reviews do not exist. Therefore, the protocol for this review was established through engagement with similar review papers 17,18,25‐27 …”

“…The following data were extracted: type of article (ie original research, non‐research), gender of first and last authors, and continent of affiliation of first and last authors (see Table 1 for full detail on data extraction procedures). Last author was included as a proxy for ‘senior author’ because in the biomedical sciences this position is often (although not exclusively) used to denote the head of the research group 11,17,25 …”

“…The aim of this paper was to examine whether gender‐based disparities in authorship and editorship exist in leading medical education journals. We conducted a retrospective bibliometric review of articles published in four highly ranked 24,25 English‐language, medical education journals. Our research questions were as follows: what are the trends in the gender of authors over time?…”