Mapping the author gender distribution of disease-specific medical research

DANISH CENTRE FOR STUDIES INRESEARCH AND RESEARCH POLICY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCEAARHUS UNIVERSITY

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER 15 SEPTEMBER 2016JENS PETER ANDERSEN2 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

INDICATORS CONFERENCE 2016

MAPPING THE AUTHOR GENDER-DISTRIBUTION OF DISEASE-SPECIFIC MEDICAL RESEARCH

Jens Peter Andersen, Jesper Wiborg Schneider & Mathias Wullum NielsenDanish Centre for Studies on Research and Research Policy, Aarhus University & History Department, Stanford University




Call for Diversity: Underrepresentation of women in biomedical research (PNAS)

NIH, EU, LERU: Diversity => enhance knowledge outcomes

Is there a ghettoisation of female-dominated health research?

Underrepresentation of female patients in clinical evidence base, e.g. for cardiovascular health

PREMISE




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Gender shapes cognition, experience and perspective.

Gender diversity => conglomeration of worldviews, orientations and interests that women, men and other genders bring into the scientific enterprise

BRIEF PRIMER ON GENDER




PubMed Medline records matched to Web of Science

PubMed: Medical subject headings (MeSH) => disease categorisation

MATERIAL




• All MeSH Categories• Diseases Category

• Animal Diseases• Abortion, Veterinary +• Actinobacillosis• …

• Bacterial Infections and Mycoses• Bacterial Infections +• Central Nervous System Infections +• …

• Cardiovascular Diseases• Cardiovascular Abnormalities +• Cardiovascular Infections +• Heart Diseases +

MESH




DATA

All documents

(2008-2015)n = 2,512,37

n = 2,124,498 n = 1,754,188

Docs matched to Wos, gender

determined for all authors

n = 1,542,050Gender not determined

for 1+ author(s)

n = 212,138

Group authors, first name length

= 1n = 370,310

Unable to match to

WoSn =

387,873




DETERMING GENDER

KIM?KIMDenmark

2% 98%South Korea

68% 32%USA

68% 32%




Each author of a paper is assigned a probability of being female, f, extracted from gender-api.com

Each paper is assigned a weighted probability, fw = sum(f)/n

Other options: binary f, f(first author), f(last author)

GENDER INDICATOR




N mesh disease terms = 4,709fw for all mesh = 0.35 (~ Gaussian)

OVERALL FINDINGS

All MeSH…

Neurobehavioral manifestations

Female urogenital diseases

Male urogenital diseases




GENDER PER DISEASE




DISCUSSION Female-dominated research:

› Female body-specific diseases› “softer” approaches, communication

Further research:› Variation in and among medical specialties› Accounting for country› Connection between funding for diseases and gender diversity› Impact

2 DANISH CENTRE FOR STUDIES INRESEARCH AND RESEARCH POLICY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCEAARHUS UNIVERSITY

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

Health & Medicine

Mapping the author gender distribution of disease-specific medical research