To investigate prevalence and trends in women's authorship of articles in ophthalmic review journals over 2 decades.
Design:
Literature survey.
Methods:
Total number of authors, and number and gender of first and senior (last-named) authors, were identified in all full reviews published in Prog Retin Eye Res, Surv Ophthalmol, and Curr Opin Ophthalmol for the calendar years 1999, 2009, and 2019. The gender of authors was assigned manually by multiple methods. The subspecialty area of each review was captured by keyword and text search. Country of origin was determined from attributions of first and senior authors.
Results:
The gender of 841 first and senior authors was assigned unequivocally for 471 articles (96%). The frequency of women's authorship rose significantly over time (1999, 2009, 2019) for both first authors (19%, 32%, 44%; P < 0.001) and senior authors (16%, 19%, 29%; P = 0.018). The number of single-author reviews decreased significantly over time (P < 0.001), as did the proportion of reviews with neither a first nor a senior woman author (P < 0.001). Women's first authorship increased over time for reviews on glaucoma (P < 0.001), while women's senior authorship increased for anterior segment/cataract (P = 0.036). The proportion of reviews with a woman first or senior author did not differ by country of origin (P = 0.887 and P = 0.520, respectively).
Conclusions:
Women's authorship of articles in ophthalmic review journals increased significantly over the 20-year period, but a gender disparity remained: in 2019, more than 55% of first authors, and more than 70% of senior authors, were men.
Keywords
authorship
eye and vision
gender
ophthalmology
review articles
Cited by (0)
Data availability statement: Data are publicly available.
This literature survey of authorship was exempt from review by the institutional Human Research Ethics Committee.
DG is supported by a PhD scholarship from the Flinders Foundation.
DG, data collection and extraction, major contribution to drafting manuscript; MCK, contribution to methodological aspects of manuscript, statistical analyses and preparation of display items; JMM, data collection and extraction, bibliographic support; KAW, data interpretation and redrafting of manuscript; JRS, principal investigator with overall responsibility for the study, study design and interpretation, final revision of manuscript.
Professors Williams and Smith contributed equally to this paper and share senior authorship of the manuscript.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
