Diversity in the editorial boards of global health journals

Summary box We present a new scoring system (Composite Editorial Board Diversity Score (CEBDS)) to evaluate the diversity of editorial board in terms of three parameters—gender, country income-level and geographic region. Having an editorial role in an academic journal reflects status and indicates leadership and influence within a field. [...]having diverse editorial boards can help to promote diverse and balanced perspectives, ensure equity and fairness, serve a role modelling function for future generations and enable the decolonisation of global health research evidence and narratives. To assign diversity scores, we developed a Composite Editorial Board Diversity Score (CEBDS) which evaluated diversity in three domains: gender, country income-level and geographic region. Table 1 Scoring systems for different domains leading to the calculation of CEBDS Score assigned Gender diversity domain (GID) Country income-level diversity domain (CIDD) Geographic region diversity domain (RID) 0 All male or all female editors All editors based in one World Bank Income classification group All editors based in one World Bank Region 1 Not applicable At least one editor based in two of the four World Bank Income classification groups At least one editor based in two or three of the total seven World Bank Regions 2 1%–39% female editors At least one editor based in three of the four World Bank Income classification groups At least one editor based in four or five of the total seven World Bank Regions 3 Not applicable At least one editor based in all four World Bank Income classification groups At least one editor based in six of the total seven World Bank Regions 4 40%–60% female editors Not applicable Not applicable CEBDS calculation GID + CIDD + RID (minimum score 0; maximum score 10) CEBDS, Composite Editorial Board Diversity Score.