Gender equity in authorship of emergency medicine publications in Australasia

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate gender authorship trends in the official journal of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM), Emergency Medicine Australasia (EMA).

Methods

A bibliometric review of author gender in EMA during the 10-year period 2013–2022. The gender of first/last authors were determined by www.genderize.io, or a manual internet search where gender was not determined with at least 90% certainty. Descriptive statistics were used with percentages of women as first and last author compared to current percentages of ACEM Fellows (FACEMs) who identify as women.

Results

The final analysis included 1703 articles. Women accounted for 27.4% fewer authors than men (36.3% vs 63.7%). Women were outnumbered by men by 20.0% among first authors (40% vs 60%), and 36.2% (31.9% vs 68.1%) for last authors. When the last author was a woman, there was a similar rate of women (49.2%) and men (50.8%) as first authors. However, when the last author was a man, first authors were 37.1% women versus 62.9% men. If the last author was a woman, there was a 60% greater probability that the first author was also a woman (odds ratio 1.6, 95% CI 1.3–2.1). First authorship rate by women was equal to or exceeds the proportion of women FACEMs, however, last authorship by women still lags behind.

Conclusion

The emergency medicine community in Australasia must continue to tackle existing gender disparities which exist in our specialty. A creative and active strategy on the part of publishers, editors, academics and authors is needed to redress this balance.