Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 28, 2024
Date Accepted: May 29, 2024
25 Years of Progress: Lessons learned from JMIR Publications to address gender parity in digital health authorships
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital health research plays a vital role in advancing equitable healthcare. The diversity of research teams is thereby instrumental in capturing societal challenges, increasing productivity, and reducing bias in algorithms. Despite its importance, the gender distribution within digital health authorship remains largely unexplored.
Objective:
Thus, this study aimed to investigate the gender distribution among authors in digital health research and identify strategies to enhance diversity in research.
Methods:
This bibliometric analysis examined the gender distribution across 59,980 publications from 1999 to 2023, spanning 42 digital health journals indexed in the Web of Science. To identify strategies ensuring equality in research, a detailed comparison of gender representation in JMIR Publications was conducted within the field, as well as against a matched sample.
Results:
The analysis revealed that 37 % of first authors and 30 % of last authors in digital health were female. JMIR Publications demonstrated a higher representation, with 49 % of first authors and 38 % of last authors being female, yielding odds ratios of 1.96 (95% CI 1.90-2.03; p<.001) and 1.78 (95% CI 1.71-1.84; p<.001), respectively. Since 2008, JMIR Publications has consistently featured a greater proportion of female first authors compared to male counterparts. Other factors that predicted female authorship included having female authors in other relevant positions and gender discordance, given the higher rate of male last authors in the field.
Conclusions:
There was an evident shift towards gender parity across publications in digital health, particularly from the publisher JMIR Publications. The specialized focus of its sister journals, equitable editorial policies, and transparency in the reviewer process might contribute to these achievment. Further research is imperative to establish causality, enabling the replication of these successful strategies across other scientific fields to bridge the gender gap in digital health effectively. Clinical Trial: Not applicable.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.