Diversity in the medical research ecosystem: a descriptive scientometric analysis of over 49 000 studies and 150 000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022

ObjectivesHealth research that significantly impacts global clinical practice and policy is often published in high-impact factor (IF) medical journals. These outlets play a pivotal role in the worldwide dissemination of novel medical knowledge. However, researchers identifying as women and those af...

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Veröffentlicht in:BMJ open 2025-01, Vol.15 (1), p.e086982
Hauptverfasser: Charpignon, Marie-Laure, Matos, Joao, Nakayama, Luis Filipe, Gallifant, Jack, Alfonso, Pia Gabrielle I, Cobanaj, Marisa, Fiske, Amelia Morel, Gates, Alexander J, Ho, Frances Dominique V, Jain, Urvish, Kashkooli, Mohammad, Link, Naira, McCoy, Liam G, Shaffer, Jonathan, Celi, Leo Anthony
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container_start_page e086982
container_title BMJ open
container_volume 15
creator Charpignon, Marie-Laure
Matos, Joao
Nakayama, Luis Filipe
Gallifant, Jack
Alfonso, Pia Gabrielle I
Cobanaj, Marisa
Fiske, Amelia Morel
Gates, Alexander J
Ho, Frances Dominique V
Jain, Urvish
Kashkooli, Mohammad
Link, Naira
McCoy, Liam G
Shaffer, Jonathan
Celi, Leo Anthony
description ObjectivesHealth research that significantly impacts global clinical practice and policy is often published in high-impact factor (IF) medical journals. These outlets play a pivotal role in the worldwide dissemination of novel medical knowledge. However, researchers identifying as women and those affiliated with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have been largely under-represented in high-IF journals across multiple fields of medicine. To evaluate disparities in gender and geographical representation among authors who have published in any of five top general medical journals, we conducted scientometric analyses using a large-scale dataset extracted from the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature Medicine.MethodsAuthor metadata from all articles published in the selected journals between 2007 and 2022 were collected using the DimensionsAI platform. The Genderize.io Application Programming Interface was then used to infer each author’s likely gender based on their extracted first name. The World Bank country classification was used to map countries associated with researcher affiliations to the LMIC or the high-income country (HIC) category. We characterised the overall gender and country income category representation across the five medical journals. In addition, we computed article-level diversity metrics and contrasted their distributions across the journals.ResultsWe studied 151 536 authors across 49 764 articles published in five top medical journals, over a period spanning 15 years. On average, approximately one-third (33.1%) of the authors of a given paper were inferred to be women; this result was consistent across the journals we studied. Further, 86.6% of the teams were exclusively composed of HIC authors; in contrast, only 3.9% were exclusively composed of LMIC authors. The probability of serving as the first or last author was significantly higher if the author was inferred to be a man (18.1% vs 16.8%, p
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These outlets play a pivotal role in the worldwide dissemination of novel medical knowledge. However, researchers identifying as women and those affiliated with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have been largely under-represented in high-IF journals across multiple fields of medicine. To evaluate disparities in gender and geographical representation among authors who have published in any of five top general medical journals, we conducted scientometric analyses using a large-scale dataset extracted from the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature Medicine.MethodsAuthor metadata from all articles published in the selected journals between 2007 and 2022 were collected using the DimensionsAI platform. The Genderize.io Application Programming Interface was then used to infer each author’s likely gender based on their extracted first name. The World Bank country classification was used to map countries associated with researcher affiliations to the LMIC or the high-income country (HIC) category. We characterised the overall gender and country income category representation across the five medical journals. In addition, we computed article-level diversity metrics and contrasted their distributions across the journals.ResultsWe studied 151 536 authors across 49 764 articles published in five top medical journals, over a period spanning 15 years. On average, approximately one-third (33.1%) of the authors of a given paper were inferred to be women; this result was consistent across the journals we studied. Further, 86.6% of the teams were exclusively composed of HIC authors; in contrast, only 3.9% were exclusively composed of LMIC authors. The probability of serving as the first or last author was significantly higher if the author was inferred to be a man (18.1% vs 16.8%, p&lt;0.01) or was affiliated with an institution in a HIC (16.9% vs 15.5%, p&lt;0.01). Our primary finding reveals that having a diverse team promotes further diversity, within the same dimension (ie, gender or geography) and across dimensions. Notably, papers with at least one woman among the authors were more likely to also involve at least two LMIC authors (11.7% vs 10.4% in baseline, p&lt;0.001; based on inferred gender); conversely, papers with at least one LMIC author were more likely to also involve at least two women (49.4% vs 37.6%, p&lt;0.001; based on inferred gender).ConclusionWe provide a scientometric framework to assess authorship diversity. Our research suggests that the inclusiveness of high-impact medical journals is limited in terms of both gender and geography. We advocate for medical journals to adopt policies and practices that promote greater diversity and collaborative research. In addition, our findings offer a first step towards understanding the composition of teams conducting medical research globally and an opportunity for individual authors to reflect on their own collaborative research practices and possibilities to cultivate more diverse partnerships in their work.</description><identifier>ISSN: 2044-6055</identifier><identifier>EISSN: 2044-6055</identifier><identifier>DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-086982</identifier><identifier>PMID: 39843370</identifier><language>eng</language><publisher>England: British Medical Journal Publishing Group</publisher><subject>Authorship ; Bibliometrics ; Biomedical Research - statistics &amp; numerical data ; Collaboration ; Datasets ; Developing Countries ; Female ; Health informatics ; Humans ; Journal Impact Factor ; Male ; Medical Education &amp; Training ; Medical Education and Training ; Medical research ; Medicine ; Multiculturalism &amp; pluralism ; Original Research ; Periodicals as Topic - statistics &amp; numerical data ; Scholarly publishing</subject><ispartof>BMJ open, 2025-01, Vol.15 (1), p.e086982</ispartof><rights>Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ Group.</rights><rights>2025 Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ Group. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ . Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.</rights><rights>Copyright © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ Group. 2025</rights><lds50>peer_reviewed</lds50><oa>free_for_read</oa><woscitedreferencessubscribed>false</woscitedreferencessubscribed><cites>FETCH-LOGICAL-b3352-38f8702c1e03f6ccf9692a9c1060cab02bf1482b9d4460345f19cacbcedd2cd33</cites><orcidid>0000-0001-9812-6207 ; 0000-0001-7207-6897 ; 0000-0002-5786-2627</orcidid></display><links><openurl>$$Topenurl_article</openurl><openurlfulltext>$$Topenurlfull_article</openurlfulltext><thumbnail>$$Tsyndetics_thumb_exl</thumbnail><linktopdf>$$Uhttps://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/1/e086982.full.pdf$$EPDF$$P50$$Gbmj$$Hfree_for_read</linktopdf><linktohtml>$$Uhttps://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/1/e086982.full$$EHTML$$P50$$Gbmj$$Hfree_for_read</linktohtml><link.rule.ids>230,314,723,776,780,860,881,2096,27901,27902,53766,53768,55325,77402,77428</link.rule.ids><backlink>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39843370$$D View this record in MEDLINE/PubMed$$Hfree_for_read</backlink></links><search><creatorcontrib>Charpignon, Marie-Laure</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Matos, Joao</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Nakayama, Luis Filipe</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Gallifant, Jack</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Alfonso, Pia Gabrielle I</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Cobanaj, Marisa</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Fiske, Amelia Morel</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Gates, Alexander J</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Ho, Frances Dominique V</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Jain, Urvish</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Kashkooli, Mohammad</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Link, Naira</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>McCoy, Liam G</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Shaffer, Jonathan</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Celi, Leo Anthony</creatorcontrib><title>Diversity in the medical research ecosystem: a descriptive scientometric analysis of over 49 000 studies and 150 000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022</title><title>BMJ open</title><addtitle>BMJ Open</addtitle><addtitle>BMJ Open</addtitle><description>ObjectivesHealth research that significantly impacts global clinical practice and policy is often published in high-impact factor (IF) medical journals. These outlets play a pivotal role in the worldwide dissemination of novel medical knowledge. However, researchers identifying as women and those affiliated with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have been largely under-represented in high-IF journals across multiple fields of medicine. To evaluate disparities in gender and geographical representation among authors who have published in any of five top general medical journals, we conducted scientometric analyses using a large-scale dataset extracted from the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature Medicine.MethodsAuthor metadata from all articles published in the selected journals between 2007 and 2022 were collected using the DimensionsAI platform. The Genderize.io Application Programming Interface was then used to infer each author’s likely gender based on their extracted first name. The World Bank country classification was used to map countries associated with researcher affiliations to the LMIC or the high-income country (HIC) category. We characterised the overall gender and country income category representation across the five medical journals. In addition, we computed article-level diversity metrics and contrasted their distributions across the journals.ResultsWe studied 151 536 authors across 49 764 articles published in five top medical journals, over a period spanning 15 years. On average, approximately one-third (33.1%) of the authors of a given paper were inferred to be women; this result was consistent across the journals we studied. Further, 86.6% of the teams were exclusively composed of HIC authors; in contrast, only 3.9% were exclusively composed of LMIC authors. The probability of serving as the first or last author was significantly higher if the author was inferred to be a man (18.1% vs 16.8%, p&lt;0.01) or was affiliated with an institution in a HIC (16.9% vs 15.5%, p&lt;0.01). Our primary finding reveals that having a diverse team promotes further diversity, within the same dimension (ie, gender or geography) and across dimensions. Notably, papers with at least one woman among the authors were more likely to also involve at least two LMIC authors (11.7% vs 10.4% in baseline, p&lt;0.001; based on inferred gender); conversely, papers with at least one LMIC author were more likely to also involve at least two women (49.4% vs 37.6%, p&lt;0.001; based on inferred gender).ConclusionWe provide a scientometric framework to assess authorship diversity. Our research suggests that the inclusiveness of high-impact medical journals is limited in terms of both gender and geography. We advocate for medical journals to adopt policies and practices that promote greater diversity and collaborative research. In addition, our findings offer a first step towards understanding the composition of teams conducting medical research globally and an opportunity for individual authors to reflect on their own collaborative research practices and possibilities to cultivate more diverse partnerships in their work.</description><subject>Authorship</subject><subject>Bibliometrics</subject><subject>Biomedical Research - statistics &amp; numerical data</subject><subject>Collaboration</subject><subject>Datasets</subject><subject>Developing Countries</subject><subject>Female</subject><subject>Health informatics</subject><subject>Humans</subject><subject>Journal Impact Factor</subject><subject>Male</subject><subject>Medical Education &amp; Training</subject><subject>Medical Education and Training</subject><subject>Medical research</subject><subject>Medicine</subject><subject>Multiculturalism &amp; pluralism</subject><subject>Original Research</subject><subject>Periodicals as Topic - statistics &amp; numerical data</subject><subject>Scholarly publishing</subject><issn>2044-6055</issn><issn>2044-6055</issn><fulltext>true</fulltext><rsrctype>article</rsrctype><creationdate>2025</creationdate><recordtype>article</recordtype><sourceid>9YT</sourceid><sourceid>ACMMV</sourceid><sourceid>EIF</sourceid><sourceid>BENPR</sourceid><sourceid>DOA</sourceid><recordid>eNp9kstu1DAUhiMEolXpEyAhS2zYhPqaxGwQKrdKldjA2nLsk4lHSTzYTqvZseWteBaeBM9kOrQs8MaW_Z_vXPwXxXOCXxPCqot2XPsNTCXFlJe4qWRDHxWnFHNeVliIx_fOJ8V5jGucFxdSCPq0OGGy4YzV-LT49d7dQIgubZGbUOoBjWCd0QMKEEEH0yMwPm5jgvEN0shCNMFtUo5C0TiYkh8hBWeQnvSwjS4i3yGfmYjL3z9-5qwoptk6iFlhERH4cKvn1PsQ0WZuBxd7sLsCerfqSzdutEnHQtZ-DpkdUQvpFmBCFON6D8vN02fFky4_wvlhPyu-ffzw9fJzef3l09Xlu-uyZUzQkjVdU2NqCGDWVcZ0spJUS0NwhY1uMW07whvaSst5hRkXHZFGm9aAtdRYxs6Kq4VrvV6rTXCjDlvltVP7Cx9WSofkzACqAmI0kRxYo3mNtSSd0LYWOH-S5pxn1tuFlXvPXZo8xaCHB9CHL5Pr1crfKEJqIYlsMuHVgRD89xliUqOLBoZBT-DnqBgRTS2qmsgsffmP9G6gexXN06lJVrFFZYKPMUB3rIZgtXOcOjhO7RynFsflqBf3GznG3PkrCy4WQY7-m_d_yD8kOOUB</recordid><startdate>20250122</startdate><enddate>20250122</enddate><creator>Charpignon, Marie-Laure</creator><creator>Matos, Joao</creator><creator>Nakayama, Luis Filipe</creator><creator>Gallifant, Jack</creator><creator>Alfonso, Pia Gabrielle I</creator><creator>Cobanaj, Marisa</creator><creator>Fiske, Amelia Morel</creator><creator>Gates, Alexander J</creator><creator>Ho, Frances Dominique V</creator><creator>Jain, Urvish</creator><creator>Kashkooli, Mohammad</creator><creator>Link, Naira</creator><creator>McCoy, Liam G</creator><creator>Shaffer, Jonathan</creator><creator>Celi, Leo Anthony</creator><general>British Medical Journal Publishing Group</general><general>BMJ Publishing Group LTD</general><general>BMJ Publishing Group</general><scope>9YT</scope><scope>ACMMV</scope><scope>CGR</scope><scope>CUY</scope><scope>CVF</scope><scope>ECM</scope><scope>EIF</scope><scope>NPM</scope><scope>AAYXX</scope><scope>CITATION</scope><scope>3V.</scope><scope>7RV</scope><scope>7X7</scope><scope>7XB</scope><scope>88E</scope><scope>88G</scope><scope>8FI</scope><scope>8FJ</scope><scope>8FK</scope><scope>ABUWG</scope><scope>AFKRA</scope><scope>AZQEC</scope><scope>BENPR</scope><scope>BTHHO</scope><scope>CCPQU</scope><scope>COVID</scope><scope>DWQXO</scope><scope>FYUFA</scope><scope>GHDGH</scope><scope>GNUQQ</scope><scope>K9-</scope><scope>K9.</scope><scope>KB0</scope><scope>M0R</scope><scope>M0S</scope><scope>M1P</scope><scope>M2M</scope><scope>NAPCQ</scope><scope>PIMPY</scope><scope>PQEST</scope><scope>PQQKQ</scope><scope>PQUKI</scope><scope>PRINS</scope><scope>PSYQQ</scope><scope>Q9U</scope><scope>7X8</scope><scope>5PM</scope><scope>DOA</scope><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9812-6207</orcidid><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7207-6897</orcidid><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5786-2627</orcidid></search><sort><creationdate>20250122</creationdate><title>Diversity in the medical research ecosystem: a descriptive scientometric analysis of over 49 000 studies and 150 000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022</title><author>Charpignon, Marie-Laure ; Matos, Joao ; Nakayama, Luis Filipe ; Gallifant, Jack ; Alfonso, Pia Gabrielle I ; Cobanaj, Marisa ; Fiske, Amelia Morel ; Gates, Alexander J ; Ho, Frances Dominique V ; Jain, Urvish ; Kashkooli, Mohammad ; Link, Naira ; McCoy, Liam G ; Shaffer, Jonathan ; Celi, Leo Anthony</author></sort><facets><frbrtype>5</frbrtype><frbrgroupid>cdi_FETCH-LOGICAL-b3352-38f8702c1e03f6ccf9692a9c1060cab02bf1482b9d4460345f19cacbcedd2cd33</frbrgroupid><rsrctype>articles</rsrctype><prefilter>articles</prefilter><language>eng</language><creationdate>2025</creationdate><topic>Authorship</topic><topic>Bibliometrics</topic><topic>Biomedical Research - statistics &amp; numerical data</topic><topic>Collaboration</topic><topic>Datasets</topic><topic>Developing Countries</topic><topic>Female</topic><topic>Health informatics</topic><topic>Humans</topic><topic>Journal Impact Factor</topic><topic>Male</topic><topic>Medical Education &amp; Training</topic><topic>Medical Education and Training</topic><topic>Medical research</topic><topic>Medicine</topic><topic>Multiculturalism &amp; 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Medical Complete (Alumni)</collection><collection>Nursing &amp; Allied Health Database (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>Consumer Health Database</collection><collection>Health &amp; Medical Collection (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>Medical Database</collection><collection>Psychology Database</collection><collection>Nursing &amp; Allied Health Premium</collection><collection>Publicly Available Content Database</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic Eastern Edition (DO NOT USE)</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic UKI Edition</collection><collection>ProQuest Central China</collection><collection>ProQuest One Psychology</collection><collection>ProQuest Central Basic</collection><collection>MEDLINE - Academic</collection><collection>PubMed Central (Full Participant titles)</collection><collection>DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals</collection><jtitle>BMJ open</jtitle></facets><delivery><delcategory>Remote Search Resource</delcategory><fulltext>fulltext</fulltext></delivery><addata><au>Charpignon, Marie-Laure</au><au>Matos, Joao</au><au>Nakayama, Luis Filipe</au><au>Gallifant, Jack</au><au>Alfonso, Pia Gabrielle I</au><au>Cobanaj, Marisa</au><au>Fiske, Amelia Morel</au><au>Gates, Alexander J</au><au>Ho, Frances Dominique V</au><au>Jain, Urvish</au><au>Kashkooli, Mohammad</au><au>Link, Naira</au><au>McCoy, Liam G</au><au>Shaffer, Jonathan</au><au>Celi, Leo Anthony</au><format>journal</format><genre>article</genre><ristype>JOUR</ristype><atitle>Diversity in the medical research ecosystem: a descriptive scientometric analysis of over 49 000 studies and 150 000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022</atitle><jtitle>BMJ open</jtitle><stitle>BMJ Open</stitle><addtitle>BMJ Open</addtitle><date>2025-01-22</date><risdate>2025</risdate><volume>15</volume><issue>1</issue><spage>e086982</spage><pages>e086982-</pages><issn>2044-6055</issn><eissn>2044-6055</eissn><abstract>ObjectivesHealth research that significantly impacts global clinical practice and policy is often published in high-impact factor (IF) medical journals. These outlets play a pivotal role in the worldwide dissemination of novel medical knowledge. However, researchers identifying as women and those affiliated with institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have been largely under-represented in high-IF journals across multiple fields of medicine. To evaluate disparities in gender and geographical representation among authors who have published in any of five top general medical journals, we conducted scientometric analyses using a large-scale dataset extracted from the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature Medicine.MethodsAuthor metadata from all articles published in the selected journals between 2007 and 2022 were collected using the DimensionsAI platform. The Genderize.io Application Programming Interface was then used to infer each author’s likely gender based on their extracted first name. The World Bank country classification was used to map countries associated with researcher affiliations to the LMIC or the high-income country (HIC) category. We characterised the overall gender and country income category representation across the five medical journals. In addition, we computed article-level diversity metrics and contrasted their distributions across the journals.ResultsWe studied 151 536 authors across 49 764 articles published in five top medical journals, over a period spanning 15 years. On average, approximately one-third (33.1%) of the authors of a given paper were inferred to be women; this result was consistent across the journals we studied. Further, 86.6% of the teams were exclusively composed of HIC authors; in contrast, only 3.9% were exclusively composed of LMIC authors. The probability of serving as the first or last author was significantly higher if the author was inferred to be a man (18.1% vs 16.8%, p&lt;0.01) or was affiliated with an institution in a HIC (16.9% vs 15.5%, p&lt;0.01). Our primary finding reveals that having a diverse team promotes further diversity, within the same dimension (ie, gender or geography) and across dimensions. Notably, papers with at least one woman among the authors were more likely to also involve at least two LMIC authors (11.7% vs 10.4% in baseline, p&lt;0.001; based on inferred gender); conversely, papers with at least one LMIC author were more likely to also involve at least two women (49.4% vs 37.6%, p&lt;0.001; based on inferred gender).ConclusionWe provide a scientometric framework to assess authorship diversity. Our research suggests that the inclusiveness of high-impact medical journals is limited in terms of both gender and geography. We advocate for medical journals to adopt policies and practices that promote greater diversity and collaborative research. In addition, our findings offer a first step towards understanding the composition of teams conducting medical research globally and an opportunity for individual authors to reflect on their own collaborative research practices and possibilities to cultivate more diverse partnerships in their work.</abstract><cop>England</cop><pub>British Medical Journal Publishing Group</pub><pmid>39843370</pmid><doi>10.1136/bmjopen-2024-086982</doi><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9812-6207</orcidid><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7207-6897</orcidid><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5786-2627</orcidid><oa>free_for_read</oa></addata></record>
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source BMJ Open Access Journals; MEDLINE; DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals; Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek - Frei zugängliche E-Journals; PubMed Central; PubMed Central Open Access
subjects Authorship
Bibliometrics
Biomedical Research - statistics & numerical data
Collaboration
Datasets
Developing Countries
Female
Health informatics
Humans
Journal Impact Factor
Male
Medical Education & Training
Medical Education and Training
Medical research
Medicine
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Original Research
Periodicals as Topic - statistics & numerical data
Scholarly publishing
title Diversity in the medical research ecosystem: a descriptive scientometric analysis of over 49 000 studies and 150 000 authors published in high-impact medical journals between 2007 and 2022
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