'You can't be what you can't see': equity, diversity and inclusivity of editorial teams of dental journals

Abstract

Introduction Equity, diversity and inclusivity in research is critical to ensure all of society contributes.Aim This study analysed the gender and location (workplace) of editorial teams across 124 dental journals.Methods All chief editors of the 91 dental journals listed on the journal citation report for 2021 were contacted to provide details of the numbers of chief editors, other editors and the editorial board members, plus a summary of their demographic information including gender, age (group) and location. If chief editors did not respond, publicly available information was collated for the analysis. The same publicly available information of 45 PubMed indexed journals not on the citation report and three emerging online journals was also retrieved.Results Of the 159 chief editors across the 124 journals, 131 (82%) were men and 30% were based in the USA. Of the 1,265 other editors, two-thirds were from the USA, UK, Brazil and Japan. Of the 3,044 editorial board members, half were from the same four countries.Conclusions 'You can't be what you can't see': women and people from many parts of the world cannot see themselves as chief editors, other editors or editorial board members of dental journals.