Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
JAMA Netw Open. 2021 Jul 1;4(7):e2114509. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.14509.
Women are less likely to be promoted and hold leadership positions in academic medicine. How often academic articles are cited is a key measure of scholarly impact and frequently assessed for professional advancement; however, it is unknown whether peer-reviewed articles written by men and women are cited differently.
To evaluate whether academic articles from high-impact medical journals written by men and women are cited differently.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In this cross-sectional study of all original research and commentary articles from 5 high-impact medical journals (Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, and The New England Journal of Medicine) from 2015 to 2018, the gender of the primary and senior authors of each article were identified using an online database, and the number of times each article has been cited was identified using Web of Science. The number of citations by primary and senior author gender were then compared. Data were analyzed from July 2020 to April 2021.
Primary and senior authors' genders.
Number of citations per article.
Among 5554 articles, women wrote 1975 (35.6%) as primary author and 1273 of 4940 (25.8%) as senior author. Original research articles written by women as primary authors had fewer median (interquartile range) citations than articles written by men as primary authors (36 [17-82] citations vs 54 [22-141] citations; P < .001) and senior authors (37 [17-93] citations vs 51 [20-128] citations; P < .001). Articles written by women as both primary and senior authors had approximately half as many median (interquartile range) citations as those authored by men as both primary and senior authors (33 [15-68] citations vs 59 [23-149] citations; P < .001). Differences in citations remained in each year of the study and were less pronounced among commentary articles.
In this study, articles written by women in high-impact medical journals had fewer citations than those written by men, particularly when women wrote together as primary and senior authors. These differences may have important consequences for the professional success of women and achieving gender equity in academic medicine.
女性在学术医学领域晋升和担任领导职位的可能性较低。学术文章的被引频次是学术影响力的关键衡量标准，并且经常用于职业发展评估；然而，目前尚不清楚由男性和女性撰写的同行评议文章的被引情况是否存在差异。
评估高影响力医学期刊上的学术文章是否因作者性别不同而被引用方式不同。
设计、设置和参与者：在这项对 2015 年至 2018 年来自 5 本高影响力医学期刊（《内科医学年鉴》《英国医学杂志》《美国医学会杂志》《美国医学会杂志-内科学》和《新英格兰医学杂志》）的所有原始研究和评论文章的横断面研究中，使用在线数据库确定每篇文章的主要作者和资深作者的性别，使用 Web of Science 确定每篇文章的被引次数。然后比较主要作者和资深作者性别的被引次数。数据分析于 2020 年 7 月至 2021 年 4 月进行。
主要作者和资深作者的性别。
每篇文章的被引次数。
在 5554 篇文章中，女性作为第一作者撰写了 1975 篇（35.6%），作为资深作者撰写了 1273 篇（4940 篇中的 25.8%）。女性作为第一作者撰写的原始研究文章的中位数（四分位距）被引次数少于男性作为第一作者撰写的文章（36 [17-82] 次引用与 54 [22-141] 次引用；P <.001）和资深作者（37 [17-93] 次引用与 51 [20-128] 次引用；P <.001）。女性作为第一作者和资深作者共同撰写的文章的中位数（四分位距）被引次数大约是男女共同作为第一作者和资深作者撰写的文章的一半（33 [15-68] 次引用与 59 [23-149] 次引用；P <.001）。在研究的每一年中，引文差异仍然存在，评论文章中的差异不那么明显。
在这项研究中，高影响力医学期刊上的女性撰写的文章的引文数量少于男性撰写的文章，尤其是当女性共同作为第一作者和资深作者撰写文章时。这些差异可能对女性的职业成功和实现学术医学领域的性别平等产生重要影响。
