Special ReportRepresentation of Women on Radiology Journal Editorial Boards: A 40-Year Analysis
Introduction
Medical journal editorial board appointments, including becoming editor-in-chief, are indicators of professional achievement and are often influenced by research and national leadership prominence. Editors, reviewers, and authors have influence over the scientific community and, therefore, lead the direction of scientific advancement and health policy 1, 2. Academic advancement and leadership roles in medicine are important to career fulfillment and impact, but historically have been obtained by more men than women, raising concern for gender bias 3, 4.
While women in leadership positions are important role models for younger women (5), recent studies suggest that the higher the leadership rank, the fewer the women. For example, a 1994 study of editors-in-chief of 100 high-impact-factor clinical medicine journals found only four women and suggested that lack of female role models and gender bias were potential causes for this gender gap (6). In 2015, section heads and vice chairs of academic radiology departments were three times more likely to be male, and 91% of departmental chairpersons were male (7).
Increasing female leadership on editorial boards may help maintain higher research standards 5, 8 as women in the sciences may consider the gender balance of the editorial boards when deciding where to submit their work (9), and having gender-diverse workgroups may produce higher quality journal articles (10). Having women in leadership positions is associated with female recruitment as shown in a recent article by Campbell et al where it was found that having a female residency program director was associated with more female residents (11). Just as patients benefit from physicians to whom they can relate, physicians benefit from leaders and editors who reflect their own demographics (12).
We are particularly interested in how bias may impact the gender discrepancy in diagnostic radiology, where men represent the majority of the workforce. In 2015, only a quarter of radiology residents were women, limiting the women available for future academic and leadership positions 7, 13. Gender gaps in medicine are concerning for a number of reasons: (1) to ensure all members have the opportunity to thrive professionally 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, (2) to optimize the quality and delivery of patient care 19, 20, 21, 22, and (3) to better represent both genders appropriately in investigator-initiated research, as women's health issues are historically less addressed (23). Previous research has shown that gender diversity increases the quality of work and innovation (20).
Our study objective was to examine the gender distribution of editorial boards of four of the most commonly read American general radiology journals over four decades. We hypothesize that the presence of female editorial board members has not been commensurate with their presence in academic radiology, both as authors in radiology journals and as faculty members in radiology departments.
Section snippets
Data Sources
We collected data from four high-impact-factor American general radiology journals published in the United States over multiple decades: Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), Academic Radiology, and Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR). Data regarding editors-in-chief were extracted from every calendar year the journals have been in publication. Every year was considered a new entry, regardless of whether there was a change in leadership. For instance, Dr. Stanley
Results
Gender was determined for all 2139 (100%) editorial board member entries listed in the selected journals for each of the study years and for all 171 (100%) editors-in-chief (as previously mentioned). Table 2 presents the detailed gender distribution of editorial board members and editors-in-chief across the four general radiology journals and study years. Overall, 15.9% (340 of 2139) of the editorial board members were female. The number of female editorial board members increased from 1.4% (1
Discussion
We found that women's representation on general radiology journal editorial boards of the four most prominent American radiology journals has increased over the last four decades, but it lagged behind the proportional increase in female authorship and faculty appointments over the same time period. Moreover, we found that no woman has been appointed to the position of editor-in-chief of the four prominent journals to date. Of note, newly announced editors-in-chief of Academic Radiology and
Acknowledgments
We thank Les James and Dennis Barbon for their contribution to data collection and Sara Burke for her statistical consultations.
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IRB Statement: Our study, based on publicly available data, was exempted from institutional review board approval.