The gender composition of the members of the editorial board of toxicology journals: Assessment of gender equality

In many areas of medicine, gender equality has not yet been fully adopted despite recent developments. Inequality of gender in various areas of medicine is still debated. In this study, we analyzed the gender composition of the editorial boards of toxicology journals in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) databases and the factors affecting this composition. Our study was performed after the approval of Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine Non-Invasive Ethics Committee (09.11.2022 number: 2022/36–09). The genders of the participants were determined by the data obtained from the official websites of the journals in the November and December of 2022. We analyzed the journal metrics and publisher properties using Mann–Whitney U, Fisher exact, Chi-square tests, and Spearman correlation coefficient. We used Logistic regression analysis to reveal the independent factors related to gender parity. The representation rates of women were 27.72% on all of editorial boards and 23.14% in editor-in-chief positions. The Reproductive Biology (OR, 2.41 95% CI, 1.42–4.09, p = 0.001), Neuroscience(OR, 1.99 95% CI, 1.34–2.95, p = 0.001) and Public, Environmental & Occupational Health (OR, 1.47 95% CI, 1.16–1.85, p = 0.001) as a coverage category, the Poland as a publisher country (OR, 2.09 95% CI, 1.23–3.56, p = 0.007), USA as a journal country(OR, 1.26, 95% CI, 1.10–1.45, p = 0.001), 5-year-IF ≥3.747 (OR, 1.22, 95% CI, 1.03–1.45, p = 0.021), were the independent factors for gender parity. However, Cell Biology as a coverage category (OR, 0.17 95% CI, 0.04–0.74, p = 0.018) the Japan as a publisher country (OR, 0.66 95% CI, 0.45–0.99, p = 0.043), Switzerland as a journal country (OR, 0.70, 95% CI, 0.54–0.93, p = 0.012), was related to gender disparity. It was determined that there was a weak positive correlation between the 2021 IFs and 5-year IFs of the journals, the number of female editorial board members and the ratio of female editorial board members (p