The Issue of Gender Bias Represented in Authorship in the Fields of Exercise and Rehabilitation: A 5-Year Research in Indexed Journals

Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology

article

Natascia Rinaldo¹  Giovanni Piva²  Suzanne Ryder¹  Anna Crepaldi³  Alba Pasini¹  Lorenzo Caruso⁴  Roberto Manfredini⁵  Sofia Straudi¹  Fabio Manfredini¹  Nicola Lamberti¹ 

[1] Department of Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, University of Ferrara;PhD Program in Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing, Department of Humanities, University of Ferrara;Instituto Maimonides de Investigation Biomedica;Department of Environment and Prevention Sciences, University of Ferrara;Department of Medical Sciences, University of Ferrara;University Center for Studies on Gender Medicine, University of Ferrara

关键词: gender bias;    authorship position;    exercise therapy;    journal ranking;    rehabilitation;    exercise;    gender;   

DOI  :  10.3390/jfmk8010018

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Despite progress made in recent decades, gender bias is still present in scientific publication authorship. The underrepresentation of women and overrepresentation of men has already been reported in the medical fields but little is known in the fields of exercise sciences and rehabilitation. This study examines trends in authorship by gender in this field in the last 5 years. All randomized controlled trials published in indexed journals from April 2017 to March 2022 through the widely inclusive Medline dataset using the MeSH term “exercise therapy” were collected, and the gender of the first and last authors was identified through names, pronouns and photographs. Year of publication, country of affiliation of the first author, and ranking of the journal were also collected. A chi-squared test for trends and logistic regression models were performed to analyze the odds of a woman being a first or last author. The analysis was performed on a total of 5259 articles. Overall, 47% had a woman as the first author and 33% had a woman as the last author, with a similar trend over five years. The trend in women’s authorship varied by geographical area, with the higher representation of women authors in Oceania (first: 53.1%; last: 38.8%), North-Central America (first: 45.3%; last: 37.2%), and Europe (first: 47.2%; last: 33.3%). The logistic regression models (p < 0.001) indicated that women have lower odds of being authors in prominent authorship positions in higher-ranked journals. In conclusion, over the last five years, in the field of exercise and rehabilitation research, women and men are almost equally represented as first authors, in contrast with other medical areas. However, gender bias, unfavoring women, still exists, especially in the last authorship position, regardless of geographical area and journal ranking.

【 授权许可】

CC BY