517 Gender trends in Authorship of US and European Periodontal Literature

Thursday, March 22, 2012: 3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
Presentation Type: Poster Session
S. KAYEUM, and E. IOANNIDOU, Periodontology, University of Connecticut, Farmington, CT
Objectives: Although women’s advancement in academic medicine has increased over the years, evidence has supported women under-representation in prominent medical journals, academic appointment positions, and leadership roles compared to their male counterparts. The objective of this study was to determine women’s leading and senior participation in published periodontal literature. As a secondary outcome, the gender trend in published US and European literature will be examined.

Methods: Articles from two major periodontal journals including Journal of Periodontology, official Journal of the American Academy of Periodontology, and the Journal of Clinical Periodontology, official Journal of the European Federation of Periodontology. The leading and senior author gender was determined either based on name or by the use of Internet search machine. Gender trends within and between the Journals were tested using non-parametric statistics.

Results: Out of the 4,244 articles that were reviewed, the gender of the leading author was determined in 72.6% of the publications and the gender of the senior author was determined in 71.9% of the publications. In both journals, there was a statistically significant increase in the percentage of leading and senior female authorship from 2001 to 2011. However, in each journal, there were significantly fewer women, who were leading and senior authors than men (p<0.0001). Overall, 26.5% of leading authors and 15.5% of senior authors were women.

Conclusions: These results indicate that women’s achievements in the publication of periodontal literature have progressed. Despite such advancement, the representation of women who are leading or senior authors in periodontal literature fall short in comparison to men. These findings provoke further investigation as to what factors may contribute to this persistent gender imbalance in academic literature.


Keywords: Education research and Periodontics
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