Gender imbalance in critical care medicine journals.

Introduction: The present study aimed at assessing gender balance in the Editorial roles of Critical Care Medicine (CCM) journals.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed for assessing the gender distribution in Editorial Board (EB) roles of journals indexed under Clarivate Journal Citation Reports and Scimago Journal & Country Rank. The influences of editorial roles and of journal rank (separated in quartiles) on gender balance were also assessed.

Results: Among 99 screened CCM journals, 92 journals were included. There were 937 women among 4002 EB members (23.4%). We found a greater imbalance among Editors-in-Chief (females: n = 12/104, 11.5%) as compared to editorial roles with lower responsibilities (Senior Editors, n = 22/104, 21.2%, p = 0.04; Associate Editors, n = 208/739, 28.1%, p = 0.0002; EB members, n = 695/3055, 22.7%, p = 0.0038). In a post-hoc analysis conducted separating the journals according to their ranking quartiles (1-2 vs 3-4), we found no influence of ranking on gender balance. When exploring the gender balance according to the journals' impact factor, there was a majority of men as editors in all 4 quartiles across all EB roles.

Conclusions: We found a large gap in gender distribution across EB members' roles in CCM journals, especially in the role of Editor-in-Chief, regardless of the journal ranking.