Does diversity beget diversity? A scientometric analysis of over 150,000 studies and 49,000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022.

Autor:	Charpignon ML; Institute for Data Systems and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA., Matos J; Laboratory for Computational Physiology, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP), Porto, Portugal.; Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESCTEC), Porto, Portugal., Nakayama L; Laboratory for Computational Physiology, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Department of Ophthalmology, São Paulo Federal University, São Paulo, SP, Brazil., Gallifant J; Laboratory for Computational Physiology, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Department of Critical Care, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom., Alfonso PGI; College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila, Manila, Philippines., Cobanaj M; Institute of Radiooncology-OncoRay, National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany., Fiske A; Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Germany., Gates AJ; School of Data Science, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA., Ho FDV; College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila, Manila, Philippines., Jain U; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA., Kashkooli M; Epilepsy Research Center, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran., McCoy LG; Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada., Shaffer J; Department of Sociology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA., Link Woite N; Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA., Celi LA; Laboratory for Computational Physiology, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.; Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	MedRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences [medRxiv] 2024 Mar 22. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 22.
DOI:	10.1101/2024.03.21.24304695
Abstrakt:	Background: Health research that significantly impacts global clinical practice and policy is often published in high-impact factor (IF) medical journals. These outlets play a pivotal role in the worldwide dissemination of novel medical knowledge. However, researchers identifying as women and those affiliated with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) have been largely underrepresented in high-IF journals across multiple fields of medicine. To evaluate disparities in gender and geographical representation among authors who have published in any of five top general medical journals, we conducted scientometric analyses using a large-scale dataset extracted from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The British Medical Journal (BMJ), The Lancet, and Nature Medicine . Methods: Author metadata from all articles published in the selected journals between 2007 and 2022 were collected using the DimensionsAI platform. The Genderize.io API was then utilized to infer each author's likely gender based on their extracted first name. The World Bank country classification was used to map countries associated with researcher affiliations to the LMIC or the high-income country (HIC) category. We characterized the overall gender and country income category representation across the medical journals. In addition, we computed article-level diversity metrics and contrasted their distributions across the journals. Findings: We studied 151,536 authors across 49,764 articles published in five top medical journals, over a long period spanning 15 years. On average, approximately one-third (33.1%) of the authors of a given paper were inferred to be women; this result was consistent across the journals we studied. Further, 86.6% of the teams were exclusively composed of HIC authors; in contrast, only 3.9% were exclusively composed of LMIC authors. The probability of serving as the first or last author was significantly higher if the author was inferred to be a man (18.1% vs 16.8%, P < .01) or was affiliated with an institution in a HIC (16.9% vs 15.5%, P < .01). Our primary finding reveals that having a diverse team promotes further diversity, within the same dimension (i.e., gender or geography) and across dimensions. Notably, papers with at least one woman among the authors were more likely to also involve at least two LMIC authors (11.7% versus 10.4% in baseline, P < .001; based on inferred gender); conversely, papers with at least one LMIC author were more likely to also involve at least two women (49.4% versus 37.6%, P < .001; based on inferred gender). Conclusion: We provide a scientometric framework to assess authorship diversity. Our research suggests that the inclusiveness of high-impact medical journals is limited in terms of both gender and geography. We advocate for medical journals to adopt policies and practices that promote greater diversity and collaborative research. In addition, our findings offer a first step towards understanding the composition of teams conducting medical research globally and an opportunity for individual authors to reflect on their own collaborative research practices and possibilities to cultivate more diverse partnerships in their work. Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to declare.
Databáze:	MEDLINE
Externí odkaz:	Zobrazit plný text záznamu