Gender Composition and Trends of Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia Editorial Board Membership: A 33-Year Analysis, 1987-2019.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE\nGender disparities in editorial board composition exist in the vast majority of specialties including anesthesiology. If a similar lack of gender parity exists in cardiothoracic anesthesiology is unknown. The authors examined the gender composition and trends of the Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia (JCVA) editorial board from the initial year of its publication (1987) to 2019. The authors tested the hypothesis that the proportion of women serving on the JCVA editorial board has steadily increased over the journal s history, but women are underrepresented compared with the percentage of those currently practicing academic cardiothoracic anesthesia in the United States (US).\n\n\nDESIGN\nObservational study.\n\n\nSETTING\nInternet analysis.\n\n\nPARTICIPANTS\nAll members of the JCVA editorial board, 1987-2019.\n\n\nINTERVENTIONS\nThe JCVA editor-in-chief, the associate editor-in-chief, associate editors, section editors, and general editors on the board were extracted from the masthead of a single issue from each calendar year. The years were divided into quartiles (1987-1995, 1996-2003, 2004-2011, and 2012-2019) to collect representative samples of editorial board composition for analysis.\n\n\nMEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS\nA total of 2,797 members of the JCVA editorial board were positively identified (2,477 [88.6%] men; 310 [11.1%] women); 10 (0.3%) editors could not be identified. Four hundred and fourteen associate and section editors were recorded (men 360 [87.0%], women 54 [13.0%]). There were also 2,353 general editors (2,087 [88.7%] men; 256 [10.9%] women). The total number of JCVA board members, associate and section editors, and general editors progressively increased from 1987 to 1995 to 2012 to 2019. The percentage of women serving on the editorial board increased from 2.5% to 15.8%. Increases in the proportion of female general editors from 2.9% to 16.2% were responsible for this overall increase. A gender gap between the percentage of female first authors (data obtained from a previous publication) and editorial board members was observed in each quartile. Editorial board composition was also different than last author distribution in 1987 to 1995 and 2012 to 2019, but not the other 2 time periods.\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\nThe results demonstrate that the proportion of women serving on the JCVA editorial board has steadily increased over the journal s history. Nevertheless, women continue to be underrepresented on the JCVA board compared with the percentage of US female academic cardiothoracic anesthesiologists, and gender gaps between first and last authorship and board composition also persist.