Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Research: A Scientometric Analysis

Abstract

Background We sought to investigate sex-specific differences in authorship of cardiovascular research over the past decade. Methods and Results All 387 463 cardiovascular publications between 2010 and 2019 were retrieved from Web of Science. Articles increased from 19 960 to 29 604 articles per year (P>0.001). The number of articles written by female first authors increased by 76.3% (6434-11 343 articles) and by 35.0% for male first authors (13 526-18 261) (P<0.001). The first author was more likely to be a female author in articles with female last authors. The median impact factor (IF) for articles by female first authors was lower (2.46 [interquartile range, 7 1.11-4.03] versus 2.51 [interquartile range, 1.17-4.10]; P<0.001). Female authorship articles reached the highest IF in North America (average IF, 3.7), with the lowest in Africa (average IF, 1.8). Conclusions Publications in cardiovascular research have increased over the past decade, particularly by female authors. Female researchers are cited less often compared with their male peers. The IF remains lower for articles by female researchers.

Keywords: cardiovascular; citation analysis; gender; research; sex.

Figure 1. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses flow diagram, showing selection of research articles.

WoS indicates Web‐of‐Science Core Collection.

Figure 2. Analysis of change in number of articles between 2010 and 2019 of first and last and female and male authors (A).

Change of median impact factor with interquartile range (IQR) per article for all authors between 2010 and 2019 (B). Distribution of number of articles according to the number of coauthors per article. The median number of coauthors was 6 (IQR, 4–9) for female first authors and 7 (IQR, 4–10) for male first authors (C).

Figure 3. Graphic visualization of overall cardiovascular research quality and quantity for female and male authors between 2010 and 2019.

Number of female and male first authors’ publications illustrated by female and male figures, proportionally to their number of publications (A). Outline color indicates the last author’s sex, with gold for female and blue for male. Research quality of first authors measured by average impact factor (IF) per research article (B), average Hirsch Index (H‐Index) per article (C), and average number of citations per article (D), separate for female first (gold) and male first (light blue), as well as female last (brown) and male last (blue) author.

Figure 4. Representative institute heat map of the world, visualizing female publications in cardiovascular research.

The extent of scientific output is color coded. The red boxes refer to each continent’s number of female first authors’ publications. map‐data © Google, inegi, orion me.