Center for Quantitative Health and Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Ann Surg. 2022 Jan 1;275(1):e115-e123. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000004057.
This study evaluates the distribution of authorship by sex over the last 10 years among the top 25 surgical journals.
Despite an increase in women entering surgical residency, there remains a sex disparity in surgical leadership. Scholarly activity is the foundation for academic promotion. However, few studies have evaluated productivity by sex in surgical literature.
Original research in the 25 highest-impact general surgery/subspecialty journals were included (1/2008-5/2018). Journals with <70% identified author sex were excluded. Articles were categorized by sex of first, last, and overall authorship. We examined changes in proportions of female first, last, and overall authorship over time, and analyzed the correlation between these measurements and journal impact factor.
There were 71,867 articles from 19 journals included. Sex was successfully predicted for 87.3% of authors (79.1%-92.5%). There were significant increases in the overall percentage of female authors (β = 0.55, P < 0.001), female first authors (β = 0.97, P < 0.001), and female last authors (β = 0.53, P < 0.001) over the study period. Notably, all cardiothoracic subspecialty journals did not significantly increase the proportion of female last authors over the study period. There were no correlations between journal impact factor and percentage of overall female authors (rs = 0.39, P = 0.09), female first authors (rs = 0.29, P = 0.22), or female last author (rs = 0.35, P = 0.13).
This study identifies continued but slow improvement in female authorship of high-impact surgical journals during the contemporary era. However, the improvement was more apparent in the first compared to senior author positions.
本研究评估了过去 10 年中排名前 25 的外科期刊中按性别分布的作者情况。
尽管越来越多的女性进入外科住院医师培训，但在外科领导岗位上仍存在性别差距。学术活动是学术晋升的基础。然而，很少有研究评估外科文献中的性别生产力。
纳入了 25 种影响最大的普通外科/亚专科期刊中的原始研究（2008 年 1 月至 2018 年 5 月）。排除了作者性别识别率<70%的期刊。文章按第一作者、最后作者和总的作者性别进行分类。我们研究了女性第一作者、最后作者和总的作者比例随时间的变化，并分析了这些测量值与期刊影响因子之间的相关性。
纳入了来自 19 种期刊的 71867 篇文章。成功预测了 87.3%的作者的性别（79.1%-92.5%）。总的女性作者比例（β=0.55，P<0.001）、女性第一作者比例（β=0.97，P<0.001）和女性最后作者比例（β=0.53，P<0.001）均显著增加。值得注意的是，在整个研究期间，所有心胸外科亚专科期刊中女性最后作者的比例都没有显著增加。期刊影响因子与总的女性作者比例（rs=0.39，P=0.09）、女性第一作者比例（rs=0.29，P=0.22）或女性最后作者比例（rs=0.35，P=0.13）之间均无相关性。
本研究表明，在当代，高影响力外科期刊中女性作者的比例持续但缓慢提高。然而，与资深作者相比，这种提高在第一作者中更为明显。
