Gender Disparities in Cardiology-Related COVID-19 Publications

• Published in: Cardiology and Therapy Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 593 - 598
• Main Authors: Vasti, Elena C., Ouyang, David, Ngo, Summer, Sarraju, Ashish, Harrington, Robert A., Rodriguez, Fatima
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cheshire Springer Healthcare 01.12.2021; Springer
• Subjects: Analysis; Brief Report; Cardiology; Cardiovascular diseases; Epidemics; Female-male relations; Forecasts and trends; Internal Medicine; Medical publishing; Medical research; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Medicine, Experimental; Sex discrimination; Social aspects; United States; United States; Women; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Cardiology; Scientific publishing; Gender disparities
• ISSN: 2193-8261; 2193-6544
• DOI: 10.1007/s40119-021-00234-6

Introduction Female authors are underrepresented in cardiology journals, although prior work suggested improvement in reducing disparities over time. Early in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, female authorship continued to lag that of their male counterparts despite a surge in publications. The cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on authorship gender disparities remains unclear. We aimed to characterize gender disparities in COVID-19-related cardiology publications across the duration of the ongoing pandemic. Methods We retrospectively analyzed COVID-19-related research articles published in the top 20 impact factor cardiology journals between March and June 2021. Gender representation data were extracted for any author, first authors, and senior authors. Results We found that 841 articles were related to COVID-19, with a total of 5586 authors and an average of 42 articles per journal. Less than a third (29.9%) of the total authors from publications were women. Women represented a smaller proportion of first authors (21.3%) and senior authors (16.4%). Conclusions Female authorship has continued to lag male authorship for the duration of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic may have impeded progress in reducing gender disparities in academic cardiology publications. The low proportions of first and senior female authors may reflect the impact of the pandemic on women in cardiology in leadership domains.