(1108) Analysis of Female Authorship in Therapeutics-Related Publishing

Introduction: Women currently account for 67.2% of the health workforce 59.6% of the pharmacy workforce, and 33.3% of researchers. However, it is unknown if publishing statistics are reflective of clinician makeup & contributions. The objective of this study was to evaluate characteristics of female first & senior authorship in high-impact pharmacy journals.

Methods: A quantitative content analysis was conducted of the top 5 pharmacy journals by 2022 impact factor according to Scimago Institutions Rankings. For every issue published, the Table of Contents was evaluated. Excluded articles included corrections to existing articles, letters to the editor, meeting abstracts, or those not in English. The primary outcome was the prevalence of the first & senior female authorship in published articles. Secondary outcomes included practice setting, funding, author credentials, and article type. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results: Among 631 eligible articles, 66.2% were written by a first female author, senior female author, or both, 27.3% written by both a first & senior female author, & 39.0% written by either a first or senior female author. 52.1% of articles had a first female author & 41.4% had a senior female author. The most common practice settings were nonspecific settings (42.1%), academic settings (19.4%), & community settings (13.2%). The majority of publications were original research (73.2%) followed by review articles (12.9%) & brief reports (7.7%). The most common credentials of female senior authors were PhD (31.1%) & PharmD (18.7%). Of the 418 articles with a first and/or senior female author, 3.1% were relevant to critical care or emergency medicine with 46.2% funded.

Conclusions: Of the articles in the top five high-impact pharmacy journals, 66.2% had a first and/or senior female author. Less than 5% of female-authored papers were relevant to critical care or emergency medicine, despite a growing number of females in these disciplines. Overall, the rate of female pharmacy publishing is lower than the rate employed in healthcare, especially regarding senior authorship. It is unclear why the amount of authorship is low and additional evaluation is needed to determine the cause. Support and encouragement are needed to increase female authorship in healthcare-related publishing.