The long road to gender equity: Women´s participation in scientific publications in Argentine journals related to cardiology

Abstract

Introduction: although women represent 70% of the health care workforce worldwide, their participation in the scientific field remains underrepresented, especially in key positions in medical literature. Objective: to evaluate the participation of women in articles published in Argentinian journals on cardiology and to analyze the changes over time over a 5-year period. Materials and Methods: retrospective analysis of scientific publications in four Argentine journals from 2017 to 2021. Gender was identified individually, by name or profile. The total number
of authors per article and their roles as first and last author were counted. Results: Of the 1291 articles, 32.6% of the authors were women, with no changes during the analyzed
period. The average number of authors per article was 4.87; men 3.12 and women 1.8 (p=0.001). The proportion of women as first and last authors was 31% and 28%, respectively. The proportion of articles with no female authors and no male authors was 33.4% versus 7.5% (p < 0.001), with a decreasing trend in the absence of women, from 37.8 in 2017 to 28% in 2021 (p=0.04). The participation of women as first authors of original and review articles was 35.7% and 32%, respectively, while they did so in only 15% of editorials and 22% of opinion articles. Conclusions: The presence of women in the Argentine cardiology literature is limited, with a significant underrepresentation and no change in the last five years. Knowing this national reality
will allow reversing the current inequality and creating new opportunities and spaces for growth.