Gender representation on editorial boards of leading oncology journals

ESMO Open

article

N. Dai¹  J. Li¹  L. Ren¹  Z. Bu¹ 

[1] Editorial Department of Chinese Journal of Cancer Research, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute;Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research ,(Ministry of Education/Beijing);Gastrointestinal Cancer Center, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute

关键词: women’s representation;    editorial board;    oncology journal;    gender bias;    gender parity;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.esmoop.2022.100590

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: BMJ Publishing Group

【 摘 要 】

Background There has historically been women underrepresentation on editorial boards of peer-reviewed medical journals. High-ranked oncology journals showcase cancer-related scientific work at the forefront of the discipline. There is urgent need to investigate gender representation on editorial boards at leading oncology journals.Materials and methods Sixty high-ranked oncology journals based on impact factor calculated by the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2021 from Web of Science/Clarivate Analytics were identified. Gender-related information of editorial boards was obtained from each journal's website. The gender of each member of the editorial team was confirmed by an internet search for picture and/or gender-specific pronoun from journal or personal profile. Fisher's exact tests and analysis of variance were used to analyze categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Significance was set at P < 0.05.Results Among 4898 members on editorial boards of top oncology journals with the highest impact factor, 1177 were women. Women made up 24% (1177 of 4898) of members on editorial boards in top oncology journals, and there was significantly less women board members than men (P < 0.0001). The mean female composition of editorial boards of oncology journals was 27% (range from 4% to 100%). Among 71 editors-in-chief of the top oncology journals, 14 (20%) were women. There was a positive correlation between the presence of women in journal editorial leadership and the percentage of women on editorial boards (rs = 0.340, P = 0.008). The underrepresentation of women on oncology journal editorial boards was significantly different among quartiles of journal impact factor. There was no significant correlation between women's representation on journal editorial boards (%) and journal impact factors (rs = 0.226, P = 0.086).Conclusions The results demonstrated that there are gender disparities among editorial leadership at high-impact oncology journals. There are cultural and structural barriers and prejudices to gender parity and diversity on editorial boards of oncology journals.

【 授权许可】

CC BY|CC BY-NC-ND