Is There Gender Bias in Radiology Journal Publication?

Purpose: It has been known that there is underrepresentation of women in radiology workforce and that this gender gap is slowly closing but far from equal. According to the JACR Workforce Survey, 27% of practicing radiologists are women in 2019 in the U.S., increased from 13% in 1990. There are few publications that show recent trends in authorship between genders in radiology specific journals. Our study aimed to identify gender disparity, if any, in first authorship (FA) or senior authorship (SA) in the journal Radiology.

Methods/Materials: Radiology was selected for review because of its large impact factor and division into subspecialties, allowing for stratification of specialty-specific authorship trends. Only articles in Original Research were counted as publications. Publications were subdivided between Clinical (N=1,040) and Non-clinical (N=174). Clinical publications were further subdivided into subspecialties such as breast and musculoskeletal (MSK). Genders were assigned using author biographies, pronouns, first names, and photographs from internet.

Results: Between January 2018 and September 2022, there were 1,214 publications in Radiology: 431 (35.5%) of the FAs were female and 783 (64.5%) of the FAs were male; 285 (23.5%) of the SAs were female and 927 (76.5%) of SAs were male. The percentage of publications with female FAs (35.5%, 95% CI: 32.8-38.3%) was significantly higher (p-value <.0001) than the percentage of female radiologists (26.5%). The percentage of publications with female SAs (23.5%, 95% CI: 21.2-26.0%) was significantly lower (p-value=0.019) than 26.5%. Clinical subspecialties with the highest percentage of publications from female FA include breast (69.0%), pediatric (34.8%), and thoracic (32.1%). The lowest percentage of publications from female FA include obstetric (16.7%), vascular/IR (22.2%), and MSK (26.8%).

Conclusions: There is no gender disparity in first authorship between women and men when comparing the percentage of women in the field of radiology. While this study is limited by comparing authors worldwide publishing in Radiology to percentage of women radiologists in the U.S., there is increasing awareness for women to be involved in research worldwide.