(704) Gender and Authorship of Publications From the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators

Introduction: The proportion of women in the field of pediatric critical care medicine is increasing. Founded in 2002, PALISI is a network which fosters clinically relevant research to optimize care in critically ill children. We aim to examine the efforts of PALISI to increase gender parity in research science as evidenced by authorship of its works.

Methods: All published PALISI articles from 2002 - 2021 were analyzed for gender of presentation of both the first and senior author. Funding sources, corresponding authors, professional role, and geographical location were extracted from each article. Impact factors were obtained for the journal in the year each article was published.

Results: We identified 303 articles, 80 published from 2002-2011 and 242 from 2012-2021. The two journals with the most frequent publications were Pediatric Critical Care Medicine with 43.2% (n=131) and Critical Care Medicine with 11.9% (n=36) of articles. The 302 first authors represent 197 unique individuals with 283 senior authors representing 122 unique individuals. Women were the first author 55.6% (n=168) of the time and this increased from 37.1% in 2002-2011 to 59.9% in 2012-2021 leading to an increased odds ratio of a female first authorship in the second decade OR= 2.53 (95% CI: 1.42, 4.51, p=0.002). Senior authors were 35.7% (n=101) female with no change over time. A female senior author was more likely to have female first author (67.7% vs 32.4%, p=0.013). About 2/3 of both first and senior authors are physicians. Virtually all non-physician senior authors are women. The majority of articles are clinical research (n=197) and no gender differences were noted based on type of article or impact factor. The corresponding author is female 48.7% (n=139) of the time. A majority of authors wrote from institutions in the United States. Women had comparatively more NIH funding (p=0.013) but less funding from foundations (p=0.011).

Conclusions: PALISI has had female first authorship increase over time such that it now exceeds both the proportion of female pediatric intensivists and female first authors in critical care publications. Senior female authorship has been stagnant. A multifactorial approach is needed by individuals, institutions, networks and journals to bring senior woman authors to parity.