Factors affecting sex-related reporting in medical research: a cross-disciplinary bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background Clinical and preclinical studies have shown that there are sex-based differences at the genetic, cellular, biochemical, and physiological levels. Despite this, numerous studies have shown poor levels of inclusion of female populations into medical research. These disparities in sex inclusion in research are further complicated by the absence of sufficient reporting and analysis by sex of study populations. Disparities in the inclusion of the sexes in medical research substantially reduce the utility of the results of such research for the entire population. The absence of sex-related reporting are problematical for the translation of research from the preclinical to clinical and applied health settings. Large-scale studies are needed to identify the extent of sex-related reporting and where disparities are more prevalent. In addition, while several studies have shown the dearth of female researchers in science, few have evaluated whether a scarcity of women in science might be related to disparities in sex inclusion and reporting. We aimed to do a cross-disciplinary analysis of the degree of sex-related reporting across the health sciences-from biomedical, to clinical, and public health research-and the role of author gender in sex-related reporting. Methods This bibliometric analysis analysed sex-related reporting in medical research examining more than 11•5 million papers indexed in Web of Science and PubMed between 1980 and 2016 and using sex-related Medical Subject Headings as a proxy for sex reporting. For papers that were published between 2008 and 2016 and could be matched with PubMed, we assigned a gender to first and last authors on the basis of their names, according to our gender assignment algorithm. We removed papers for which we could not determine the gender of either the first or last author. We grouped papers into three disciplinary categories (biomedical research, clinical medicine, and public health). We used descriptive statistics and regression analyses (controlling for the number of authors and representation of women in specific diseases, countries, continents, year, and specialty areas) to study associations between the gender of the authors and sex-related reporting.

From presentation to paper: Gender disparities in oncological research

“…In oncological research, for example, several sex‐based differences in the treatment and outcomes of cancer patients have been explored and revealed important issues in, for example, drug responses and toxicity . The presence of a female author in a study has been positively associated with the likelihood of the exploration and analysis of these sex‐based differences . Diversity in sex of researchers could therefore also contribute to a more diverse perception of science, possibly contributing to favorable outcomes for patients in the end, especially in the light of recent findings in sex‐based differences in oncology …”

“…[36][37][38] The presence of a female author in a study has been positively associated with the likelihood of the exploration and analysis of these sex-based differences. 39,40 Diversity in sex of researchers could therefore also contribute to a more diverse perception of science, possibly contributing to favorable outcomes for patients in the end, especially in the light of recent findings in sex-based differences in oncology. 36 Our study has some limitations.…”

Engaging Emergency Medicine Influencers in Sex‐ and Gender‐based Medicine: Lessons Learned from the Sex and Gender Interest Group in Emergency Medicine and the SAEM Jeopardy Game

“…Even with the NIH prompts and continually mounting evidence identifying clinically important sex and gender differences in disease, pharmacology, therapeutic interventions, and medical outcomes, the earnest inclusion of the variables of sex and gender into mainstream medical research and clinical care has been slow to occur. As many sex‐ and gender‐based medicine (SGBM) principles are directly related to acute care, we, as leaders of Sex and Gender in Emergency Medicine (SGEM) Interest Group at SAEM, identified a need to accelerate education surrounding SGBM within academic emergency medicine (EM) . This innovation paper describes how a Jeopardy‐like game may facilitate knowledge translation of SGBM principles to academic emergency physicians (EPs) to enhance their use in clinical care, teaching, and research.…”

Feminism, equity and the family‐centred workplace

“…It matters to science. More gender‐diverse and inclusive teams improve outcomes in science and medicine . It matters to patients.…”

“…More gender-diverse and inclusive teams improve outcomes in science and medicine. [2][3][4] It matters to patients. A Florida study found female patients with acute myocardial infarction were more likely to survive if they were treated by female than by male doctors.…”