The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Gender Distribution of Value in Health Journal Authors

Speaker(s)

Moderator: Julia F. Slejko, PhD, Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Baltimore, MD, USA
Speakers: Michael Drummond, PhD, University of York, Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK; Nancy Joy Devlin, PhD, Department of Public Health, Research Unit of User Perspectives, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; Sumie Kakehi, PharmD, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Despite many initiatives to promote and increase representation, women remain underrepresented in the scientific community1,2,3. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted lives around the world and has presented additional challenges for women3. Several studies across various fields of research have reported that the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with a decrease in the proportion of papers submitted for publication or coauthored by women3,4,5. To date, data on the gender of authors of papers submitted to Value in Health (ViH) have not been routinely collected and analyzed. The goal of this forum is to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender distribution of ViH authors. Objectives include exploring whether there is a difference in gender balance of authors for papers published in ViH before (2018 and 2019) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 and 2021) and understanding the characteristics and circumstances that women in HEOR faced regarding publication of research in the United States. The forum will be introduced and moderated by the Women in HEOR co-Lead, Julia Slejko. Nancy Devlin will discuss the background of the project. Sumie Kakehi will present research findings related to gender of authors on ViH submissions and publications before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. and Mike Drummond will discuss the findings from the ViH publication perspective.

References

  1. Thomas EG, et al. Gender disparities in invited commentary authorship in 2459 medical journals.
  2. Filardo G, et al. Trends and comparison of female first authorship in high impact medical journals: observational study (1994-2014).
  3. Muric G, et al. Gender disparity in the authorship of biomedical research publications during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  4. Viglione G. Are women publishing less during the pandemic? Here’s what the data say.
  5. Yildirim, T. M., and Eslen‐Ziya, H. The Differential Impact of COVID‐19 on the Work Conditions of Women and Men Academics during the Lockdown.

Code

220

Topic

Organizational Practices