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Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology

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01-03-2021 | COVID-19 | Miscellaneous

Impact of COVID-19 on longitudinal ophthalmology authorship gender trends

Authors: Anne X. Nguyen, Xuan-Vi Trinh, Jerry Kurian, Albert Y. Wu

Published in: Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology | Issue 3/2021

Abstract

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the gender gap in academic publishing. This study assesses COVID-19’s impact on ophthalmology gender authorship distribution and compares the gender authorship proportion of COVID-19 ophthalmology-related articles to previous ophthalmology articles.

Methods

This cohort study includes authors listed in all publications related to ophthalmology in the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset and CDC COVID-19 research database. Articles from 65 ophthalmology journals from January to July 2020 were selected. All previous articles published in the same journals were extracted from PubMed. Gender-API determined authors’ gender.

Results

Out of 119,457 COVID-19-related articles, we analyzed 528 ophthalmology-related articles written by 2518 authors. Women did not exceed 40% in any authorship positions and were most likely to be middle, first, and finally, last authors. The proportions of women in all authorship positions from the 2020 COVID-19 group (29.6% first, 31.5% middle, 22.1% last) are significantly lower compared to the predicted 2020 data points (37.4% first, 37.0% middle, 27.6% last) (p < .01). The gap between the proportion of female authors in COVID-19 ophthalmology research and the 2020 ophthalmology-predicted proportion (based on 2002–2019 data) is 6.1% for overall authors, 7.8% for first authors, and 5.5% for last and middle authors. The 2020 COVID-19 authorship group (1925 authors) was also compared to the 2019 group (33,049 authors) based on journal category (clinical/basic science research, general/subspecialty ophthalmology, journal impact factor).

Conclusions

COVID-19 amplified the authorship gender gap in ophthalmology. When compared to previous years, there was a greater decrease in women’s than men’s academic productivity.

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Title: Impact of COVID-19 on longitudinal ophthalmology authorship gender trends
Authors: Anne X. Nguyen
Xuan-Vi Trinh
Jerry Kurian
Albert Y. Wu
Publication date: 01-03-2021
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Keyword: COVID-19
Published in: Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology / Issue 3/2021
Print ISSN: 0721-832X
Electronic ISSN: 1435-702X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-021-05085-4

At a glance: The ONWARDS insulin icodec trials

Springer Medicine

Impact of COVID-19 on longitudinal ophthalmology authorship gender trends

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

At a glance: The ONWARDS insulin icodec trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

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