CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 23Diversity and Career in MedicineSex and Gender in Healthcarescientometrics and bibliometrics research

Prevalence of female authors in case reports published in the medical literature

Open access
Hsiehchen, David, Hsieh, Antony, Espinoza, Magdalena·2019·JAMA Network Open
DOI 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.5000PMC PMC6547100
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Importance: Underrepresentation of female authors in research publications is prevalent, but it is unclear whether this is attributable to sex disparities in research conduct or authorship practices. Case reports are a poorly understood component of the biomedical corpus, and the production of anecdotal observations is not confounded by factors associated with disparities in female representation in research publications. Whether female authorship disparities exist in nonresearch publications of clinical information is unknown. Objectives: To examine the authorship of case reports and elucidate factors associated with sex disparity. Design and Setting: Cross-sectional study of all case reports published by US authors in 2014 and 2015 indexed in PubMed performed from July 2015 to July 2018. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome measure was the proportion of female first authors. The secondary outcome measures were the proportion of female last authors and female authorship representation among different clinical specialties. Results: Bibliometric data was abstracted from 20 427 case reports published across 2538 journals. A total of 7252 (36%) and 4825 (25%) case reports had a female first and last author, respectively. In comparison, 44% and 34% of US trainees and physicians, respectively, were female in 2015. Among adult case reports, female authorship was more prevalent in academic environments compared with community settings (34.0% vs 28.2% for female first authors and 23.4% vs 19.7% for female last authors). Across states, the proportions of female first authors and last authors were universally less than the proportions of female trainees and active female physicians, respectively. Female first authorship was associated with larger author teams (odds ratio [OR], 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03), an academic affiliation (OR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.06-1.27), and a female last author (OR, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.47-1.70). Relative to general internal medicine, specialties dominated by male clinicians were less frequently associated with female first authors. Several exceptions displaying a relatively equivalent tendency for male and female first authorship included oncology (OR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.81-1.16), ophthalmology (OR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.72-1.05), and radiation oncology (OR, 0.94 95% CI, 0.56-1.56). Conclusions and Relevance: The underrepresentation of women among first and last authors in publications of case reports underscores the pervasiveness of sex disparities in medicine. Collaboration and female mentors may be critical instruments in upsetting longstanding practices associated with sex bias. Not all clinical specialties were associated with lower-than-expected female authorship, and further exploration of specialty-specific norms in publication and mentorship may elucidate specific barriers to female authorship.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.5000

Cites

54 of 54 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The minimum sample size to find associations was 844 studies, based on an error probability of 5%, power of 80%, equal proportion of exposed and unexposed, and estimated effect size OR=1.5.

    “the minimum sample size to find associations, considering an error probability of 5% (α = 0.05), power (1-β) of 80%, an equal proportion of exposed and unexposed (women and men), and an estimated effect size of odds ratio (OR) = 1.5 based on a previous study of female team contribution 20 , was 844 studies.”

    From Global mapping of randomized controlled trials in dentistry (2024) · cites this paper as [20]

  • A sample size calculation was performed, yielding a minimum sample size of 844 studies.

    “The estimated minimum sample size to find associations, considering a probability of error of 5% (α = 0.05), power (1-β) of 80%, equal proportion of exposed and unexposed (women and men), and an estimated effect size of odds ratio (OR) = 1.5 based on a previous study on the contribution of female teams [23], was 844 studies.”

    From Assessing transparency practices in dental randomized controlled trials (2024) · cites this paper as [23]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Hsiehchen, D., Hsieh, A., & Espinoza, M.
Affiliations
  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (US)
  • University of Pennsylvania (US)
  • University of Arizona (US)
Corresponding author
Hsiehchen, David
ORCID
Venue
JAMA Network Open
Publisher
American Medical Association (AMA)
Published
2019-05-31
Volume
2
Issue
5
Pages
e195000
ISSN
2574-3805 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.5000
PMC
PMC6547100
OpenAlex
W2947717634
Cited by
23
References
54
Citations by year
2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4
FWCI
6.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • JAMA Network Open (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UA Campus Repository (The University of Arizona) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Diversity and Career in Medicine
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Sex and Gender in Healthcare
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
Keywords
female authorship, authorship practices, medical specialties, women in medicine, gender equity in research, bibliometric analysis, gender equity in science
MeSH terms
Adult, Authorship, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Middle Aged, Physicians, Women, Publications, Sex Factors, United States, Prevalence, Biomedical Research

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review