Brazilian authorship gender trends on academic surgery: a bigdata analysis

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the gender distribution of first and last authors with Brazilian surgical affiliations in PubMed-indexed surgical journals. Methods: Data from eligible surgical journals were retrieved using Scimago Journal & Country Rank 2021 and manually reviewed. Manuscripts published from 2018 to 2022 were included if at least one author was affiliated with a Brazilian institution and a surgical specialty. Results: Data from 340 eligible surgical journals were included. We analyzed first and last authors’ forenames of 1,881 manuscripts. Women comprised 16.7% of the first and 12.4% of the last authors. Analyzing the differences in gender trends in authorship across the five Brazilian regions, we found that the South had the highest representation, while the Midwest and North showed the lowest, respectively. Obstetrics and gynecology featured the highest percentage of women-first authors, whereas orthopedics had the lowest. For the last authorship, pediatric surgery showed the highest, with hand surgery having the lowest representation. Male first authors were 1.9 times more likely to engage in international collaborations. Conclusion: This study suggests the persistent underrepresentation of Brazilian women in surgical journal authorship. Local policy changes should be considered to encourage greater diversity and inclusivity in surgical research.