EMBARGOED UNTIL 3:45 P.M. CHINA STANDARD TIME (UTC+08:00) JUNE 23, 2022
Alexandria, VA, USA, June 17, 2022 – A study of gender inequities in dental research publications will be presented by Dandara Haag of the University of Adelaide at the 100th General Session and Exhibition of the IADR, to be held in conjunction with the 5th Meeting of the IADR Asia Pacific Region. The Interactive Talk presentation, “Gender Inequities in Dental Research Publications: Findings from 20 Years”, will take place on Thursday, June 23rd, 2022 at 3:45 p.m. China Standard Time (UTC+08:00) during the “Women in Science Network I” session.
This study described trends in gender disparities in first and last authorship in the most cited dental publications and general dental literature over a 20- year period. Articles and bibliometric data were retrieved from the Scopus database for the period 1996 to 2015. Two groups of 1,000 articles each were retrieved: a random sample and another sample of top-cited articles for each year. The gender of the first and last author of each publication was manually identified. When this was not possible, an online software platform was used (https://genderize.io). Descriptive analyses identified the proportion of female first and last authors in both samples, stratifying by dental discipline and geographic region. Trends were ascertained by frequency metrics across years.
Gender disparity was observed in both first and last authorship, with a larger gap being observed in the top cited sample. Women led 28.4% and 20.3% of articles in the random and top cited samples, respectively. A similar pattern was observed for the last authorship group (22.1% and 16.1%, respectively). An increasing trend in the proportion of articles led by women over time was observed in both samples. This increase was larger in the top cited sample (from 15.0% in 1996-2000 to 25.1% in 2015) than in the random sample (from 26.3% in 1996-2000 to 33.2% in 2011). Clear gender disparities in dental research publications in the last 20 years were identified in both general and top cited manuscripts, across dental disciplines, across countries, across first and last authorship, and over time. The authors call for actions to be taken to attract, retain and promote women in science, as well as to monitor and ensure progress towards gender equity.
View this Interactive Talk in the IADR General Session Virtual Experience Platform.
View a PDF for this press release online.
About IADR
The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) is a nonprofit organization with over 10,000 individual members worldwide, with a Mission to drive dental, oral and craniofacial research to advance health and well-being worldwide. To learn more, visit www.iadr.org.