Abstract
Rationale and Objectives: Underrepresentation of women in many scientific fields has been linked to biases against female-authored publications in peer-reviewed journals, thereby reducing their opportunities for career development and promotions. The objective of this study is to determine the representation of female academic radiologists in four flagship general radiology journals to elucidate gender-specific trends and disparities in academic radiology. Materials and Methods: We analyzed 23,741 peer-reviewed articles published in Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, Journal of the American College of Radiology and Academic Radiology from 2007 to 2020. Data abstraction and statistical analysis were performed for author gender, first and last authorship, research funding, and number of citations and grants. Baseline demographics data of academic radiologists was obtained from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Results: A total of 72.4% of authors were male with 54% of articles were written by a male first author and male last author. When compared with assumed random pairing, there were significantly fewer Male/Female author combinations and more Female/Female author combinations than expected (p<0.01). Over the 13-year time period, the rate of increase in the number of female authors exceeded the rate of increase in women in academic radiology as reported by the AAMC. Female last authors received on average 3.2 less citations than their male counterparts (p=.03). Of manuscripts with last female authors, 31.7% of female last authors were funded compared to 25.9% of last male authors. Conclusion: This study showed the increasing numbers and higher productivity of female authors in academic radiology, suggesting progress is being made in overcoming gender disparities.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1714-1720 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Academic radiology |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 2023 |
Funding
It has been repeatedly demonstrated throughout multiple fields, including radiology, that men are graded and compensated more positively than women despite identical work ( 38 ). This has been commonly described as a “glass ceiling” as the number of women representing full professors, department chairs, and award recipients is significantly lower than the proportion of women in the field ( 15 , 39 ). As research productivity and citation-linked metrics are intimately linked with promotions through the academic pipeline, literature has aimed to evaluate whether there is a bias against citation of articles written by women ( 27 , 40 ). These studies have shown that in certain fields, women receive fewer citations than would be expected if the article were written by men. In radiology, Goswami et al. found that h-index and years of practice were the strongest predictors for full-professorship and executive leadership among faculty ( 15 ). In our study, no statistically significant citation discrimination was identified, suggesting that this type of citation-discrimination may be less prevalent in radiology and that overall, our specialty is supportive of their academic female constituents. This is further supported by higher rates of grant funding (including NIH funding) received by female last authors in this study. However, in contrast, Juras et al. recently found that the mean NIH grants awarded to women in radiology is less than that awarded to men, with their findings suggesting that women were being held to a higher academic standard than men in terms of funding decisions ( 21 ). Further investigation regarding gender-based citation and funding discrimination is needed. The authors would like to thank The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for providing baseline gender data for the total number of academic radiologists by year for all medical degree (M.D.)-granting U.S. medical schools from 2006 to 2020.
Keywords
- Academic radiology
- Gender disparity
- Women
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging