Trends in gender of authors of original research in oncology among major medical journals: a retrospective bibliometric study.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lee SF
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8524267 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:The title of an article is the main entrance for reading the full article. The aim of our work therefore is to examine differences of title content and form between original research articles and its changes over time. Using PubMed we examined title properties of 500 randomly chosen original research articles published in the general major medical journals BMJ, JAMA, Lancet, NEJM and PLOS Medicine between 2011 and 2020. Articles were manually evaluated with two independent raters. To analyze differences between journals and changes over time, we performed random effect meta-analyses and logistic regression models. Mentioning of results, providing any quantitative or semi-quantitative information, using a declarative title, a dash or a question mark were rarely used in the title in all considered journals. The use of a subtitle, methods-related items, such as mentioning of methods, clinical context or treatment increased over time (all p < 0.05), while the use of phrasal tiles decreased over time (p = 0.044). Not a single NEJM title contained a study name, while the Lancet had the highest usage of it (45%). The use of study names increased over time (per year odds ratio: 1.13 (95% CI: [1.03‒1.24]), p = 0.008). Investigating title content and form was time-consuming because some criteria could only be adequately evaluated by hand. Title content changed over time and differed substantially between the five major medical journals. Authors are advised to carefully study titles of journal articles in their target journal prior to manuscript submission.
| S-EPMC10306213 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We examined the gender distribution of authors of retracted articles in 134 medical journals across 10 disciplines, compared it with the gender distribution of authors of all published articles, and found that women were underrepresented among authors of retracted articles, and, in particular, of articles retracted for misconduct.
| S-EPMC10589828 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesEvaluate gender differences in authorship of COVID-19 articles in high-impact medical journals compared with other topics.DesignCross-sectional review.Data sourcesMedline database.Eligibility criteriaArticles published from 1 January to 31 December 2020 in the seven leading general medical journals by impact factor. Article types included primary research, reviews, editorials and commentaries.Data extractionKey data elements were whether the study topic was related to COVID-19 and names of the principal and the senior authors. A hierarchical approach was used to determine the likely gender of authors. Logistic regression assessed the association of study characteristics, including COVID-19 status, with authors' likely gender; this was quantified using adjusted ORs (aORs).ResultsWe included 2252 articles, of which 748 (33.2%) were COVID-19-related and 1504 (66.8%) covered other topics. A likely gender was determined for 2138 (94.9%) principal authors and 1890 (83.9%) senior authors. Men were significantly more likely to be both principal (1364 men; 63.8%) and senior (1332 men; 70.5%) authors. COVID-19-related articles were not associated with the odds of men being principal (aOR 0.99; 95% CI 0.81 to 1.21; p=0.89) or senior authors (aOR 0.96; 95% CI 0.78 to 1.19; p=0.71) relative to other topics. Articles with men as senior authors were more likely to have men as principal authors (aOR 1.49; 95% CI 1.21 to 1.83; p<0.001). Men were more likely to author articles reporting original research and those with corresponding authors based outside the USA and Europe.ConclusionsWomen were substantially under-represented as authors among articles in leading medical journals; this was not significantly different for COVID-19-related articles. Study limitations include potential for misclassification bias due to the name-based analysis. Results suggest that barriers to women's authorship in high-impact journals during COVID-19 are not significantly larger than barriers that preceded the pandemic and that are likely to continue beyond it.Prospero registration numberCRD42020186702.
| S-EPMC8282422 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ImportanceGender disparity exists among authors of the oncology literature.ObjectiveTo quantify trends in authorship by gender within a comprehensive data set of Medline-indexed oncology articles in medical journals with high impact factors.Design, setting, and participantsThis cross-sectional study used Medline citations to examine archives of research journals from 3 disciplines in the oncology literature. Authors from all oncology-related articles with Medical Subject Headings terms assigned from 2002 to 2018 from 13 general oncology/medicine, radiation oncology, and surgical journals were included for analysis, encompassing clinical trials, observational studies (excluding case reports), reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and all other published articles. Data were analyzed between April and May 2020.ExposuresAuthors were assigned genders based on societal naming norms via third-party gender identification service Gender-API.com. This assignment was internally validated based on manually obtained publicly available data on the internet.Main outcomes and measuresTrend in female authorship over time while considering journal type, authorship position, and article type.ResultsA total of 420 526 authors from 58 368 articles were found, of which 400 945 were assigned a gender based on their name. In total, 29.5% (95% CI, 29.4%-29.6%) of authors were identified as female, rising from 25.5% (95% CI, 24.7%-26.3%) in 2002 to 31.7% (95% CI, 31.2%-32.3%) in 2018. Each subgroup of primary article type by journal type saw a rise in female authorship over the studied period. For primary articles, last authors were less likely to be women than first authors, regardless of journal type, year, and primary article type (eg, general oncology: odds ratio [OR], 0.60; 95% CI, 0.52-0.69). For general oncology articles, women were less likely to be authors of clinical trials at each authorship position than authors at that respective position for observational studies (first, second, and last authors: OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.49-0.67; other authors: OR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.79-0.89). This difference was not seen for radiation oncology or surgical oncology journals.Conclusions and relevanceThis cross-sectional study found that female authorship in oncology research literature has increased. However, there remains a dearth of female senior authors, and the overall rise in female authorship has not kept up with the rise in female oncology faculty.
| S-EPMC8025110 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundShared Decision Making (SDM) is increasingly advocated as a model for medical decision making. However, there is still low use of SDM in clinical practice. High impact factor journals might represent an efficient way for its dissemination. We aimed to identify and characterize publication trends of SDM in 15 high impact medical journals.MethodsWe selected the 15 general and internal medicine journals with the highest impact factor publishing original articles, letters and editorials. We retrieved publications from 1996 to 2011 through the full-text search function on each journal website and abstracted bibliometric data. We included publications of any type containing the phrase "shared decision making" or five other variants in their abstract or full text. These were referred to as SDM publications. A polynomial Poisson regression model with logarithmic link function was used to assess the evolution across the period of the number of SDM publications according to publication characteristics.ResultsWe identified 1285 SDM publications out of 229,179 publications in 15 journals from 1996 to 2011. The absolute number of SDM publications by journal ranged from 2 to 273 over 16 years. SDM publications increased both in absolute and relative numbers per year, from 46 (0.32% relative to all publications from the 15 journals) in 1996 to 165 (1.17%) in 2011. This growth was exponential (P?<?0.01). We found fewer research publications (465, 36.2% of all SDM publications) than non-research publications, which included non-systematic reviews, letters, and editorials. The increase of research publications across time was linear. Full-text search retrieved ten times more SDM publications than a similar PubMed search (1285 vs. 119 respectively).ConclusionThis review in full-text showed that SDM publications increased exponentially in major medical journals from 1996 to 2011. This growth might reflect an increased dissemination of the SDM concept to the medical community.
| S-EPMC4136407 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subset of artificial intelligence that enables machines to understand and respond to human language through Large Language Models (LLMs)‥ These models have diverse applications in fields such as medical research, scientific writing, and publishing, but concerns such as hallucination, ethical issues, bias, and cybersecurity need to be addressed. To understand the scientific community's understanding and perspective on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in research and authorship, a survey was designed for corresponding authors in top medical journals. An online survey was conducted from July 13th, 2023, to September 1st, 2023, using the SurveyMonkey web instrument, and the population of interest were corresponding authors who published in 2022 in the 15 highest-impact medical journals, as ranked by the Journal Citation Report. The survey link has been sent to all the identified corresponding authors by mail. A total of 266 authors answered, and 236 entered the final analysis. Most of the researchers (40.6%) reported having moderate familiarity with artificial intelligence, while a minority (4.4%) had no associated knowledge. Furthermore, the vast majority (79.0%) believe that artificial intelligence will play a major role in the future of research. Of note, no correlation between academic metrics and artificial intelligence knowledge or confidence was found. The results indicate that although researchers have varying degrees of familiarity with artificial intelligence, its use in scientific research is still in its early phases. Despite lacking formal AI training, many scholars publishing in high-impact journals have started integrating such technologies into their projects, including rephrasing, translation, and proofreading tasks. Efforts should focus on providing training for their effective use, establishing guidelines by journal editors, and creating software applications that bundle multiple integrated tools into a single platform.
| S-EPMC11343420 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Successful publishing of an article depends on several factors, including the structure of the main text, the so-called introduction, methods, results and discussion structure (IMRAD). The first objective of our work is to provide recent results on the number of paragraphs (pars.) per section used in articles published in major medical journals. Our second objective is the investigation of other structural elements, i.e., number of tables, figures and references and the availability of supplementary material. We analyzed data from randomly selected original articles published in years 2005, 2010 and 2015 from the journals The BMJ, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine and PLOS Medicine. Per journal and year 30 articles were investigated. Random effect meta-analyses were performed to provide pooled estimates. The effect of time was analyzed by linear mixed models. All articles followed the IMRAD structure. The number of pars. per section increased for all journals over time with 1.08 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.70-1.46) pars. per every two years. The largest increase was observed for the methods section (0.29 pars. per year; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.19-0.39). PLOS Medicine had the highest number of pars. The number of tables did not change, but number of figures and references increased slightly. Not only the standard IMRAD structure should be used to increase the likelihood for publication of an article but also the general layout of the target journal. Supplementary material has become standard. If no journal-specific information is available, authors should use 3/10/9/8 pars. for the introduction/methods/results/discussion sections.
| S-EPMC7544105 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Importance:In peer-reviewed medical journals, authoring an invited commentary on an original article is a recognition of expertise. It has been documented that women author fewer invited publications than men do. However, it is unknown whether this disparity is due to gender differences in characteristics that are associated with invitations, such as field of expertise, seniority, and scientific output. Objective:To estimate the odds ratio (OR) of authoring an invited commentary for women compared with men who had similar expertise, seniority, and publication metrics. Design, Setting, and Participants:This matched case-control study included all medical invited commentaries published from January 1, 2013, through December 31, 2017, in English-language medical journals and multidisciplinary journals. Invited commentaries were defined as publications that cite another publication within the same journal volume and issue. Bibliometric data were obtained from Scopus. Cases were defined as corresponding authors of invited commentaries in a given journal during the study period. Controls were matched to cases based on scientific expertise by calculating a similarity index for abstracts published during the same period using natural language processing. Data analyses were conducted from March 13, 2019, through May 3, 2019. Exposure:Corresponding or sole author gender was predicted from author first name and country of origin using genderize.io. Main Outcomes and Measures:The OR for gender was estimated after adjusting for field of expertise, publication output, citation impact, and years active (ie, years since first publication), with an interaction between gender and years active. Results:The final data set included 43 235 cases across 2549 journals; there were 34 047 unique intraciting commentary authors, among whom 9072 (26.6%) were women. For researchers who had been active for the median of 19 years, the odds of invited commentary authorship were 21% lower for women (OR, 0.79 [95% CI, 0.77-0.81]; P < .001) compared with men who had similar scientific expertise, number of publications, and citation impact. For every decile increase in years active, the OR decreased by a factor of 0.97 (95% CI, 0.96-0.98; P < .001). Conclusions and Relevance:In this case-control study, women had lower odds of authoring invited commentaries than their male peers. This disparity was larger for senior researchers. Journal editors could use natural language processing of published research to widen and diversify the pool of experts considered for commentary invitations.
| S-EPMC6820037 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND:Women are currently underrepresented in academic psychiatry. As publication activity reflects both leadership and participation in academia, we examined temporal trends in women's authorship by conducting a large-scale bibliometric study of psychiatry journals. METHODS:We examined changes in proportions of women in the first, last, and overall authorship positions over time; relationship to journal impact factor and editorial board makeup; and rates of transition to senior author status using original research articles published in the 24 highest-impact psychiatry journals between January 2008 and May 2018. RESULTS:In 30,934 articles, women represented 40.0% of all authors in 2008 and 44.8% in 2018, with a significant increase in the percentage of women as first authors (2008: 43.5%, 2018: 49.5%; B = 0.64, p = .002) and last authors over time (2008: 30.0%, 2018: 35.7%; B = 0.64, p = 1 × 10-5). Articles with women as last authors were significantly more likely than those with men as last authors to have a woman as first author (?21 = 126.1, p < 2.2 × 10-16). Women exhibited slower rates of transition to the last author position (log rank p = 2 × 10-16); time to 10% transition was 5 years for men and 9 years for women. CONCLUSIONS:These results indicate continued improvement in the representation of women authors in psychiatry journals, resulting in near parity in first authors. However, slower rates of transition to the senior author position and continued underrepresentation of women as senior authors suggest ongoing challenges in achieving gender parity in academic leadership. At the present rate of change for last authors (0.64% increase per year), women would achieve parity in senior authorship in ?20 to 25 years.
| S-EPMC6699930 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In this paper we present the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of eleven open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs are a relatively recent phenomenon, and have been characterised as having four key characteristics: large size; broad disciplinary scope; a Gold-OA business model; and a peer-review policy that seeks to determine only the scientific soundness of the research rather than evaluate the novelty or significance of the work. Our investigation focuses on four key modes of analysis: journal outputs (the number of articles published and changes in output over time); OAMJ author characteristics (nationalities and institutional affiliations); subject areas (the disciplinary scope of OAMJs, and variations in sub-disciplinary output); and citation profiles (the citation distributions of each OAMJ, and the impact of citing journals). We found that while the total output of the eleven mega-journals grew by 14.9% between 2014 and 2015, this growth is largely attributable to the increased output of Scientific Reports and Medicine. We also found substantial variation in the geographical distribution of authors. Several journals have a relatively high proportion of Chinese authors, and we suggest this may be linked to these journals' high Journal Impact Factors (JIFs). The mega-journals were also found to vary in subject scope, with several journals publishing disproportionately high numbers of articles in certain sub-disciplines. Our citation analsysis offers support for Björk & Catani's suggestion that OAMJs's citation distributions can be similar to those of traditional journals, while noting considerable variation in citation rates across the eleven titles. We conclude that while the OAMJ term is useful as a means of grouping journals which share a set of key characteristics, there is no such thing as a "typical" mega-journal, and we suggest several areas for additional research that might help us better understand the current and future role of OAMJs in scholarly communication.
| S-EPMC5115662 | biostudies-other