Khan, Iman F.

Abstract Women are less likely to be senior authors, invited to write in scientific journals, and to be cited in high impact journals. The aim of this study was to investigate trends in authorship and gender differences in peer-reviewed burn literature over 13 years. We performed a retrospective analysis of original research articles published from January 2009 to September 2021 in three burn journals. A gender determination application was used to categorize the gender of the first and senior author. Of the 3,908 articles analyzed, 42.5% had a woman first author and 27.6% had a woman senior author. We identified 2,029 unique senior authors, 29.0% of whom were women. Woman senior authorship was associated with increased odds of woman first authorship [OR=2.31 (95% CI 2.00, 2.67); p<0.001]. The percentage of papers with a woman senior author increased from 17.8% in 2009 to 35.7% in 2021. If this 1.0% (95% CI: 0.50 – 1.51%) linear trend increase per year in woman senior authorship continues, we will expect to see equal proportions of woman and man senior authors in the included journals starting in 2037. The field of burn care is far from reaching gender parity with respect to authorship of peer-reviewed publications. Supporting and encouraging gender concordant and discordant first:last authorship dyads in mentorship as well as redistributing obligations that may detract from authorship opportunities are potential ways to improve parity in authorship and academia.

Abstract Introduction The importance of gender equity and gender representation in academic publications has long been emphasized in medicine. It has been established that women represent a smaller proportion of primary and senior authors in high-impact medical journals than men and that original research articles written by women as primary and senior authors are less frequently sited than those authored by men. Currently, there is limited data evaluating whether this gender bias is present in plastic surgery and burn publications. We used bibliometric analysis of original research publications to analyze gender bias against women in one burn journal. Methods Using the journal, Burns, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of research publications from 2009 to 2020. A gender determining application was used to characterize the gender of the first and senior author. Ratios of male:male, female:male, male:female, and female:female were obtained and analyzed. Results Of the 1677 publications included, 40% have female first authors and 25.5% had female senior authors. Male:male authorships had the highest number of publications. Female:female authorship had the lowest number of publications of all the other ratios from 2009-2012, however there was a steep increase in 2013 in which male:female authorship had the lowest number of publications. Male senior authorship was associated with 2.9-fold increase in male first authorship [OR=2.99(95% CI 2.39, 3.76); p < 0.0001). Conclusions Female representation in senior authorship positions in burn and wound care publications is increasing, however is still far from reaching gender parity. By analyzing authorship ratios by gender, we recommend a new way to evaluate gender disparity in burn and wound care academia.