Gender representation on editorial boards of leading oncology journals

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There has historically been women underrepresentation on editorial boards of peer-reviewed medical journals. High-ranked oncology journals showcase cancer-related scientific work at the forefront of the discipline. There is urgent need to investigate gender representation on editorial boards at leading oncology journals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty high-ranked oncology journals based on impact factor calculated by the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2021 from Web of Science/Clarivate Analytics were identified. Gender-related information of editorial boards was obtained from each journal's website. The gender of each member of the editorial team was confirmed by an internet search for picture and/or gender-specific pronoun from journal or personal profile. Fisher's exact tests and analysis of variance were used to analyze categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Significance was set at P < 0.05. RESULTS: = 0.226, P = 0.086). CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrated that there are gender disparities among editorial leadership at high-impact oncology journals. There are cultural and structural barriers and prejudices to gender parity and diversity on editorial boards of oncology journals.