Dataset Information

Gender and ethnic differences in publication of BMJ letters to the editor: an observational study using machine learning.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To analyse the relationship between first author's gender and ethnicity (estimated from first name and surname), and chance of publication of rapid responses in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). To analyse whether other features of the rapid response account for any gender or ethnic differences, including the presence of multiple authors, declaration of conflicts of interests, the presence of Twitter handle, word count, reading ease, spelling and grammatical mistakes, and the presence of references.

Design

A retrospective observational study.

Setting

Website of the BMJ (BMJ.com).

Participants

Publicly available rapid responses submitted to BMJ.com between 1998 and 2018.

Main outcome measures

Publication of a rapid response as a letter to the editor in the BMJ.

Results

We analysed 113 265 rapid responses, of which 8415 were published as letters to the editor (7.4%). Statistically significant univariate correlations were found between odds of publication and first author estimated gender and ethnicity, multiple authors, declaration of conflicts of interest, the presence of Twitter handle, word count, reading ease, spelling and grammatical mistakes, and the presence of references. Multivariate analysis showed that first author estimated gender and ethnicity predicted publication after taking into account the other factors. Compared to white authors, black authors were 26% less likely to be published (OR: 0.74, CI: 0.57-0.96), Asian and Pacific Islander authors were 46% less likely to be published (OR: 0.54, CI: 0.49-0.59) and Hispanic authors were 49% less likely to be published (OR: 0.51, CI: 0.41-0.64). Female authors were 10% less likely to be published (OR: 0.90, CI: 0.85-0.96) than male authors.

Conclusion

Ethnic and gender differences in rapid response publication remained after accounting for a broad range of features, themselves all predictive of publication. This suggests that the reasons for the differences of these groups lies elsewhere.

SUBMITTER: Zeina M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7754629 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Gender and ethnic differences in publication of BMJ letters to the editor: an observational study using machine learning.

Zeina Mohamad M Balston Alfred A Banerjee Amitava A Woolf Katherine K

BMJ open 20201221 12

<h4>Objectives</h4>To analyse the relationship between first author's gender and ethnicity (estimated from first name and surname), and chance of publication of rapid responses in the <i>British Medical Journal</i> (BMJ). To analyse whether other features of the rapid response account for any gender or ethnic differences, including the presence of multiple authors, declaration of conflicts of interests, the presence of Twitter handle, word count, reading ease, spelling and grammatical mistakes, ...[more]

PMID: 33371013

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Project description:BackgroundLetters of recommendation are considered one of the most important factors for whether an applicant is selected for an interview for orthopaedic surgery residency programs. Language differences in letters describing men versus women candidates may create differential perceptions by gender. Given the gender imbalance in orthopaedic surgery, we sought to determine whether there are differences in the language of letters of recommendation by applicant gender.Questions/purposes(1) Are there differences in word count and word categories in letters of recommendation describing women and men applicants, regardless of author gender? (2) Is author gender associated with word category differences in letters of recommendation? (3) Do authors of different academic rank use different words to describe women versus men applicants?MethodsUsing a linguistic analysis in a retrospective study, we analyzed all letters of recommendation (2834 letters) written for all 738 applicants with completed Electronic Residency Application Service applications submitted to the Johns Hopkins Orthopaedic Surgery Residency program during the 2018 to 2019 cycle to determine differences in word category use among applicants by gender, authors by gender, and authors by academic rank. Thirty nine validated word categories from the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count dictionary along with seven additional word categories from previous publications were used in this analysis. The occurrence of words in each word category was divided by the number of words in the letter to obtain a word frequency for each letter. We calculated the mean word category frequency across all letters and analyzed means using non-parametric tests. For comparison of two groups, a p value threshold of 0.05 was used. For comparison of multiple groups, the Bonferroni correction was used to calculate an adjusted p value (p = 0.00058).ResultsLetters of recommendation for women applicants were slightly longer compared with those for men applicants (366 ± 188 versus 339 ± 199 words; p = 0.003). When comparing word category differences by applicant gender, letters for women applicants had slightly more "achieve" words (0.036 ± 0.015 versus 0.035 ± 0.018; p < 0.0001). Letters for men had more use of their first name (0.016 ± 0.013 versus 0.014 ± 0.009; p < 0.0001), and more "young" words (0.001 ± 0.003 versus 0.000 ± 0.001; p < 0.0001) than letters for women applicants. These differences were very small as each 0.001 difference in mean word frequency was equivalent to one more additional word from the word category appearing when comparing three letters for women to three letters for men. For differences in letters by author gender, there were no word category differences between men and women authors. Finally, when looking at author academic rank, letters for men applicants written by professors had slightly more "research" terms (0.011 ± 0.010) than letters written by associate professors (0.010 ± 0.010) or faculty of other rank (0.009 ± 0.011; p < 0.0001), a finding not observed in letters written for women.ConclusionsAlthough there were some minor differences favoring women, language in letters of recommendation to an academic orthopaedic surgery residency program were overall similar between men and women applicants.Clinical relevanceGiven the similarity in language between men and women applicants, increasing women applicants may be a more important factor in addressing the gender gap in orthopaedics.

Dataset Information

Gender and ethnic differences in publication of BMJ letters to the editor: an observational study using machine learning.

Objectives

Design

Setting

Participants

Main outcome measures

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Gender and ethnic differences in publication of BMJ letters to the editor: an observational study using machine learning.

Similar Datasets

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