(026) Ten Years of Authorship by Women in Sexual Medicine Journals: Are We Making Progress?
Authors: Brink S , Nguyen J , Wan E , Chen J , Brenin A , Choi JW , Chen D , Palmer C , Peta A , Bonte A , Shin D 
Published: February 2024

Introduction

Women are historically underrepresented in Urology, but the demographics are slowly changing. As of 2023, only 10.9% of urology attendings are women; however, women represent 37% of the accepted residency class of 2028. With increasing representation of women in urology, we hypothesized this would reflect in women’s authorship patterns in published manuscripts.

Objective

We sought to identify if the increasing representation of women in urology is reflected in first or last authorship in sexual medicine journals.

Methods

All manuscripts published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and Sexual Medicine from 2013 to 2023 were reviewed. Original research manuscripts were included; manuscripts submitted under Psychology subsections, Paraphilia subsections, as well as systematic reviews, meta-analyses, communications, commentaries, replies, and those involving psychometrics were excluded. Single author manuscripts were classified under first author for the analysis. First and last authors were identified and internet search was performed to best determine gender, relying on, in order of preference: listed pronouns, picture, or traditionally masculine versus feminine name. We recognize this method of determining gender identity based on conventional gender presentations is imperfect and may not represent the full spectrum of gender diversity of the included authors. Institutional information was also collected. Chi-square analyses and odds ratio were performed to compare authorship patterns.

Results

2156 manuscripts met criteria, 1717 from Journal of Sexual Medicine and 439 from Sexual Medicine. From 2013-2023, women composed 44.1% (951/2156) of first authors and 32.5% (691/2156) of last authors. Overall, first authorship by women increased from 2013 (110/271, 41%) to 2023 (59/104, 57%) (p&lt;0.005) [Figure 1]. In 2022 and 2023, women were the majority of first authors (50.3% and 56.7%, respectively). Manuscripts with women as first authors were more likely to have women as last authors (OR: 1.64, CI: 1.45-1.86, p&lt;0.0001). In the US and Canada, the majority of first (61.1%, 214/350) and last (61.6%, 157/254) authors who are women came from public rather than private institutions, but this was non-significant. First authors who are women predominantly came from North America (38.6%), Europe (36.3%), Asia (17.7%), South America (3.9%), Australia/New Zealand (2.6%), followed by Africa (0.9%); last authors who are women had a similar breakdown by continent. The greatest percentage of authorship by women came from Australia/New Zealand with 50.8% (32/63) of first authors and 45% (27/60) of last authors. The largest disparity was seen in Africa with 22.2% (10/45) of first authors and a mere 16.3% (7/43) of last authors being women.

Conclusions

Authorship by women in sexual medicine journals is increasing over time, with positive trends observed in both first and last authorship. The effect is more pronounced in first authorship as compared to last, possibly reflecting the increasing numbers of trainees who are women. Manuscripts with women as first authors are correlated with last authors who are women, supporting a positive relationship in gender concordant mentorship.

Disclosure

No.