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Gender representation in rheumatology journals: an assessment of editors, editorial boards, and authors

  • Observational Research
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Abstract

Diversity is widely recognized as a driver of excellence and innovation. In recent years, women have become an increasingly significant part of the rheumatology workforce. We aimed to assess the gender representation of the leading rheumatology journals' editors and to explore whether editors' gender correlates with the gender of the first and last authors of published articles. We conducted a cross-sectional study and extracted editorial members of rheumatology journals in quartiles 1 to 3 (Clarivate Analytics) from each journal's website. We categorized editorial positions according to the level of influence in manuscript acceptance decision-making (levels I to III). The gender of editors and of the first and last authors in all 2019 original articles published in a sample of 15 rheumatology journals was assigned using a combination of digital gallery and manual searches. There were 2242 editors' names retrieved from 43 journals, 24 (26%) of the 94 editors at level I, 139 (36%) of 385 editors at level II, and 469 (27%) of 1763 at level III were female. The imbalance between journals was heterogeneous. Females were the first authors in 1342 (48%) and the last authors in 969 (35%) of the 2797 published articles. However, we found no significant correlation between editors' and authors' gender. Our data showed uneven gender representation on the editorial boards of most rheumatology journals, but we did not find any apparent vertical segregation or influence on publishing by gender. Our findings suggest that a generational transition may be occurring among authors.

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The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript was presented in part as a poster in the ACR Convergence 2022 meeting (Arthritis Rheumatol. 2022; 74 (suppl 9). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/gender-representation-of-the-editors-and-editorial-boards-of-the-top-45-rheumatology-focused-journals/. We use a large language model (Grammarly. https://app.grammarly.com/) solely to check spelling and grammar.

Funding

No specific funding was received from any public, commercial, or not-for-profit bodies to carry out the work described in this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 23298, USA

    Aldo Barajas-Ochoa

  2. Rheumatology Unit, Hospital General de México “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga”, Dr. Balmis 148. Col. Doctores.Cuahtémoc, 06720, Mexico City, Mexico

    Ingris Peláez-Ballestas & Amaranta Manrique de Lara

  3. Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, México

    Manuel Ramirez-Trejo, Paloma Gradilla-Magaña & Antonio Cisneros-Barrios

  4. Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnológicas (ICAT), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Alfonso Gastelum-Strozzi

  5. Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, 44620, Guadalajara, Jal, Mexico

    Cesar Ramos-Remus

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  1. Aldo Barajas-Ochoa
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Correspondence to Cesar Ramos-Remus.

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Conflict of interest

The authors A. Barajas-Ochoa, I. Peláez-Ballestas, M. Ramirez-Trejo, P. Gradilla-Magaña, A. Cisneros-Barrios, A. Manrique de Lara, A. Gastelum-Strozzi, and C. Ramos Remus declare they have no competing interests or conflicts of interest, financial or non-financial, which are directly or indirectly related to the work that is being submitted for publication.

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Barajas-Ochoa, A., Peláez-Ballestas, I., Ramirez-Trejo, M. et al. Gender representation in rheumatology journals: an assessment of editors, editorial boards, and authors. Rheumatol Int 43, 1811–1819 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-023-05390-7

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