Trends in female representation in published ophthalmology literature, 2000-2009

Abstract

Purpose: To examine trends in female first and last authors in clinical ophthalmology literature published from January 2000 to December 2009.

Methods: A total of 3760 articles in American Journal of Ophthalmology (AJO), 2347 articles in Archives of Ophthalmology (Archives), and 3838 articles in Ophthalmology spanning 10 years of published ophthalmology peer-reviewed literature were examined. All original research articles and brief reports indexed online were included. Author gender was determined by an exhaustive Internet search. Articles were excluded if the sex of the author could not be determined or was not applicable (for example, articles by a study group rather than an individual author).

Results: Gender information was identified in 86.8% of articles for first authors and 86% for last authors. The number of female first authors (P < 0.0001) and last authors (P = 0.005) increased significantly in the study period in all journals examined, with a significant association between the sex of the first and last authors (OR = 2.19; 95% CI, 1.96-2.46; P < 0.0001), when examining all articles. Female representation increased for last authors significantly only in Ophthalmology. There was a significant correlation between gender of the first author and total number of authors that was not observed with last-author sex.

Conclusions: Female first authorship has increased from 2000 to 2009 and is correlated with the gender of the last author; however, there were fewer female last authors compared to female first authors in the same period.

Figure 1.

Trends showing percentage of female authorship among first and last authors in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Archives of Ophthalmology, and Ophthalmology.