Health Innovation Techcenter (HIT), Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.
Barão de Mauá University Center, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2024 Jun 26;19(6):e0304659. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304659. eCollection 2024.
Peer-reviewed literature is commonly used to assess academic progress and research excellency. However, representation in authorship of global health publications is biased and unfair. In order to shed light on current gaps towards attaining gender equality in scientific production and shift power asymmetries in global health research, we conducted an assessment of authorship trends from 1972 to 2021 with a focus on gender and geographic representation in scientific articles authored or co-authored by researchers affiliated with UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP).
We searched PubMed, Web of Science, and HRP public reports for publications where at least one author was affiliated with HRP. Our main outcome measures were author gender and location of author affiliation, classified by region and country income group. We used descriptive statistics to characterize the publications under analysis as well as the total number of authors from the included papers. We applied a logistic regression model to explore associations between author gender and other characteristics of published articles and a time series analysis to assess how time can influence the inclusion of women as authors in a publication. Python and R were used for all analyses.
A total of 1,484 publications with 14,424 listed authors representing 5,950 unique authors were included in our analysis: 42.5% were female, 35.1% male, and 22.4% unknown (p<0.0001). First authorship was more likely female (56.9%) and from a high-income country (74.6%, p<0.0001) while last authorship was mostly male (53.7%) also from a high-income country (82.5%, p<0.0001). Females more frequently published papers using qualitative data (61.4%) and reviews/estimates (59.4%) while men published more case control (70.7%) and randomised controlled studies (53.0%), p<0.0001. The adjusted odds of there being a female author increased 4% for every additional year that passed.
While there are more females authoring articles as compared to the past, they are still lagging behind with regards to seniority and prestige. Likewise, female representation is closely tied to what institution they are affiliated with and where that institution is located. Global health research institutions need to actively promote change by ensuring women are included in research and research outputs, giving them opportunities to lead.
同行评议文献通常用于评估学术进展和研究卓越性。然而，全球健康出版物的作者代表性存在偏见和不公平。为了揭示在实现科学产出性别平等方面的当前差距，并改变全球健康研究中的权力不对称，我们评估了 1972 年至 2021 年的作者趋势，重点关注隶属于开发计划署/人口基金/儿童基金会/世卫组织/世界银行人类生殖研究、发展和研究培训特别方案（HRP）的研究人员撰写或合作撰写的科学文章中的性别和地理代表性。
我们在 PubMed、Web of Science 和 HRP 公开报告中搜索至少有一位作者隶属于 HRP 的出版物。我们的主要观察结果是作者的性别和作者所属机构的所在地，按区域和国家收入组进行分类。我们使用描述性统计方法来描述所分析的出版物以及所包含论文的作者总数。我们应用逻辑回归模型来探索作者性别与已发表文章其他特征之间的关联，并进行时间序列分析，以评估时间如何影响女性在出版物中作为作者的纳入情况。Python 和 R 用于所有分析。
我们的分析共纳入了 1484 篇出版物和 14424 名列出的作者，代表了 5950 名独特的作者：42.5%为女性，35.1%为男性，22.4%为未知（p<0.0001）。第一作者更有可能是女性（56.9%）和来自高收入国家（74.6%，p<0.0001），而最后作者主要是男性（53.7%），也来自高收入国家（82.5%，p<0.0001）。女性更频繁地发表使用定性数据（61.4%）和综述/估计（59.4%）的论文，而男性发表更多的病例对照（70.7%）和随机对照研究（53.0%），p<0.0001。每增加一年，女性成为作者的调整后几率就会增加 4%。
虽然现在有更多的女性成为文章的作者，但与过去相比，她们在资历和威望方面仍处于落后地位。同样，女性的代表性与她们所属的机构以及该机构的所在地密切相关。全球健康研究机构需要通过确保女性参与研究和研究成果，为她们提供领导机会，积极推动变革。
