Peer review for the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia in 2016 and 2017: a retrospective analysis by reviewer and author gender.

Purpose: Our objectives were to analyze the gender of reviewers of all manuscripts submitted to the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia in 2016 and 2017. We hypothesized that the percentage of reviewers who were women would be ≤ 25%, an estimate based on the expert opinion estimates of the investigators and much less than the overall proportion of women in medicine.

Methods: Reviewers and authors of manuscripts submitted between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2017 were coded as "woman", "man", or "unknown gender" according to an internet search of the person's name, address, medical registration, and/or first name. We also explored associations between reviewer gender and author gender, numbers and types of manuscripts assigned, as well as speed of acceptance and completion of reviews.

Results: Of the 1,300 manuscripts for which first and corresponding author gender were identified, 855 manuscripts (66%) were only assessed internally by the editor-in-chief and/or associate editors, and 445 manuscripts (34%) were sent for external peer review. Of the 280 reviewers for these manuscripts, 64 (22.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 18.3 to 28.1) were women (P = 0.40 compared with 25%). Women provided 174 (18%) and men provided 780 (82%) of the 954 external written reviews. Four hundred and seventy of the 1,300 manuscripts (36.2%; 95% CI, 33.6 to 38.8) had a woman as the first and/or corresponding author.

Conclusions: Despite 36.2% of the authors being women, only 22.9% of reviewers were women and they represented only 18% of the individual written reviews gathered. Our results are consistent with previous reports of underrepresentation of women as reviewers in various disciplines. Formal policies that promote increased gender diversity should be considered.