(1066) Analysis of Female Authorship in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine Publishing

Introduction: According to the World Health Organization, women made up approximately 67% of healthcare workforce worldwide in 2021. Similarly, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that women make up 77% of healthcare practitioners. However, publishing statistics do not reflect this. The objective of this study was to evaluate female first and senior authorship in critical care and emergency medicine journals.

Methods: A quantitative content analysis was conducted of the top ten critical care journals by 2021 impact factor and top ten emergency medical journals by 2020 impact factor according to Scimago Institutions Rankings. For every issue published, the Table of Contents was evaluated. The only articles excluded were corrections to existing articles, letters to the editor, meeting abstracts, or those not in English. The primary outcome was the prevalence of the first and senior authorship in published articles. Secondary outcomes included funding, author credentials, and departmental listings noted for the authors. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results: Among 4,377 eligible articles, 46% had a first or senior female author, 33% had a first female author, 20% had a senior female author, and 9% had both a first and senior female author. The most common regional origins for these journals were North America and the United Kingdom, making up approximately 2/3 of the twenty journals selected. The majority of female publications were original research (66.9%). Other types of publications included editorials (10%) and review articles (7.8%). The most common credentials of female senior authors were MD (60.1%) and PhD (28.6%). Out of the 2,012 articles with a female first or senior author, only 42% received research funding.

Conclusions: Only 46% of articles in the top ten critical care and emergency medicine journals were written by female first and/or senior authors. This indicates that the rate of female publishing is 21% lower than the rate of females employed in healthcare worldwide and 31% lower in the U.S. It is unclear why the amount of authorship is disproportionately low and additional evaluation is needed to determine the cause. Support and encouragement is needed to increase female authorship in healthcare-related publishing.