Gender, Race, and Regional Disparities in Leading Authorships of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Randomized Controlled Trials.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

To investigate gender, racial, ethnic, and regional disparities in first and senior authorship positions in gastroenterology/hepatology-related randomised controlled trials (RCT).

METHOD

Retrospective bibliometric analysis of PubMed-indexed RCTs published between January 2000 to December 2022 in leading journals with an impact factor of at least five.

RESULTS

943 RCTs met our inclusion criteria, providing a participant pool of 301 female (15.96%) and 1,585 male (84.04%) authors from 37 countries (70% high-income countries). Despite a significant increase in the proportion of female authors in first and senior authorship positions between 2000 and 2022 (p<0.001), females were grossly underrepresented in both authorship positions, with a male-to-female ratio of 4.45 and 6.37, respectively. The male-to-female ratio was highest among Asian authors (7.79) than among White (4.22), Hispanic (1.44), and Black (1) authors in the first authorship position. In contrast, the male-to-female ratio was similar for Asian (6.2) and White (6.67) authors in the senior authorship position, with a low underlying frequency of Hispanic and Black female authors.

CONCLUSION

Despite significant improvements in gender, racial and ethnic representation in first and senior authorship of gastroenterology/hepatology-related RCTs published in high-impact journals, progress toward parity remains slow. Targeted interventions to improve author diversity are warranted.