The aim of this study was to report women’s authorship in Value in Health in terms of articles submitted to and accepted for publication before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate its potential impact on women’s research productivity.
The proportion of women corresponding and first authors among submitted and accepted articles were analyzed and compared between the 2 periods: before (2018-2019) and during the COVID pandemic (2020-2021). The proportion of women corresponding authors from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) was compared with the proportion from the rest of world (ROW).
A total of 4910 Value in Health submissions were identified from 2018 to 2021. The proportion of women’s first and corresponding authorship of articles submitted to and accepted for publication in Value in Health slightly increased from before the pandemic to during the pandemic, although not statistically significantly. The difference in proportions of women corresponding authors between LMIC and ROW countries was statistically significant for both periods: before and during the pandemic. Logistic regression models determined that submissions from ROW countries have an increased odds of women corresponding authorship than submissions from LMIC countries (OR 1.28; 95% CI 1.11-1.46).
Findings from this study suggest that the pandemic did not exert an adverse effect on women submitting to or publishing articles in Value in Health. Additional studies are needed to explore whether the proportions are representative of the workforce and investigate whether these distributions change in the future.