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. 2019 Oct 2;2(10):e1913682.
doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.13682.

Gender Disparities in Invited Commentary Authorship in 2459 Medical Journals

Emma G Thomas  1 , Bamini Jayabalasingham  2 , Tom Collins  2 , Jeroen Geertzen  3 , Chinh Bui  3 , Francesca Dominici  1   4
Affiliations

Gender Disparities in Invited Commentary Authorship in 2459 Medical Journals

Emma G Thomas et al. JAMA Netw Open. .

Abstract

Importance: In peer-reviewed medical journals, authoring an invited commentary on an original article is a recognition of expertise. It has been documented that women author fewer invited publications than men do. However, it is unknown whether this disparity is due to gender differences in characteristics that are associated with invitations, such as field of expertise, seniority, and scientific output.

Objective: To estimate the odds ratio (OR) of authoring an invited commentary for women compared with men who had similar expertise, seniority, and publication metrics.

Design, setting, and participants: This matched case-control study included all medical invited commentaries published from January 1, 2013, through December 31, 2017, in English-language medical journals and multidisciplinary journals. Invited commentaries were defined as publications that cite another publication within the same journal volume and issue. Bibliometric data were obtained from Scopus. Cases were defined as corresponding authors of invited commentaries in a given journal during the study period. Controls were matched to cases based on scientific expertise by calculating a similarity index for abstracts published during the same period using natural language processing. Data analyses were conducted from March 13, 2019, through May 3, 2019.

Exposure: Corresponding or sole author gender was predicted from author first name and country of origin using genderize.io.

Main outcomes and measures: The OR for gender was estimated after adjusting for field of expertise, publication output, citation impact, and years active (ie, years since first publication), with an interaction between gender and years active.

Results: The final data set included 43 235 cases across 2549 journals; there were 34 047 unique intraciting commentary authors, among whom 9072 (26.6%) were women. For researchers who had been active for the median of 19 years, the odds of invited commentary authorship were 21% lower for women (OR, 0.79 [95% CI, 0.77-0.81]; P < .001) compared with men who had similar scientific expertise, number of publications, and citation impact. For every decile increase in years active, the OR decreased by a factor of 0.97 (95% CI, 0.96-0.98; P < .001).

Conclusions and relevance: In this case-control study, women had lower odds of authoring invited commentaries than their male peers. This disparity was larger for senior researchers. Journal editors could use natural language processing of published research to widen and diversify the pool of experts considered for commentary invitations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Drs Jayabalsingham, Collins, Geertzen, and Bui are affiliated with Elsevier, the publisher of some of the journals included in this study. Dr Dominici reported that Elsevier has given a gift to the Harvard Data Science Initiative of which Dr Dominici is a codirector. No other disclosures were reported.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria and Sources of Missing Data
ASJC indicates All Science Journal Classification; ICC, intraciting commentary.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Odds of Authoring an Invited Commentary for Women vs Men by Percentile of Years Active
Results are adjusted for field of expertise, h-index percentile, and total number of publications percentile. The 10th percentile indicates approximately 8 years; the 50th percentile, approximately 19 years (the median number); 90th percentile, approximately 38 years; line, odds ratio (OR); shading, 95% CI.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Subgroup Analyses by Journal Topic
Journals may have multiple All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes; thus, the topics overlap with respect to journals included. Model 1 (orange squares) controls for authors’ fields of expertise through matching. Model 2 (blue squares) includes the adjustments in model 1 and also adjusts for years active percentile, h-index percentile, and total number of publications percentile. Years active indicates years since first publication in Scopus; OR, odds ratio; error bars, 95% CIs.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.. Journal-Specific Odds Ratios (ORs) Plotted Against CiteScore
The line and shading represent the OR and 95% CI, respectively, for women vs men of authoring invited commentaries as a function of the CiteScore of the journal in which the commentary was published. Each circle represents the OR estimated for a single journal, and circle diameter is inversely proportional to the SE of the log OR estimate. Only journals with more than 50 matched sets are shown.
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