key: cord-0766982-0734cqzs
authors: Pendlebury, Elizabeth C.; Cushman, Mary
title: Annual report on equity, diversity, and inclusion: Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis is meeting its goals
date: 2021-11-02
journal: Res Pract Thromb Haemost
DOI: 10.1002/rth2.12610
sha: b5372330e9efb8b07b0a97f9e52d060850b821d8
doc_id: 766982
cord_uid: 0734cqzs

nan

Annually during #WomenInMedicine Month, we tabulate and report statistics on the representation of women as authors and reviewers in the journal. The goal is representation of women at the level of membership by women in the ISTH, about 45%.

Since RPTH launched in 2017, we have seen some fluctuations in representation of women authors. The percentage of women authors overall, and of women corresponding/senior authors gradually increased to June 2020. 2 From July 2018 to June 2019 we observed a decline in the proportion of women senior authors of invited articles (ie, the person invited) from 41.9% to 30.8%. This led to greater effort to invite women authors and a corresponding large increase in 2019 to 2020 to 56.8%. 2 To improve accuracy of classification, we also began collecting self-reported gender (including nonbinary) when authors log in to our manuscript processing system. To tabulate author gender, we supplement this self-report data by assigning gender based on Internet searches for information about each author with missing gender.

This year, from July 2020 to June 2021, there were 1098 authors and 44.9% were women, meeting our goal of 45% for the first time and slightly higher than the percentage last year; 368 of 842 (43.7%; Figure 1 ). This year, gender was self-identified for 300 authors (169 men, 126 women, 5 other) and assigned for 798 authors (418 men, 367 women, 13 unknown). Thus, 42% of self-identified authors were women and 46% of assigned authors were women.

The percentage of women senior/corresponding authors was similar in 2020 to 2021 and 2019 to 2020; of 159 senior/corresponding authors in 2020-21, 42.8% were women, as compared to 43.1% the year before. To enhance these data, we hope for ongoing increases in collection of self-identified author gender. This requires authors to log in to our manuscript processing site, which queries them. We encourage all authors to log in and report this information to improve our data.

A reader may inquire how the RPTH goals for gender equity in publishing are met. The editors have no control of who submits articles to us for consideration of publication, so we cannot raise the percentage of women authors on our own. However, we can assure that we are fair in peer review of submitted articles, regardless of who the authors are. We minimize unconscious bias in peer review using several methods. First, the associate editor group is consistently 40% to 50% women (with a woman editor-in-chief), which may increase fair treatment of women in peer review. 3 Second, we regularly discuss unconscious bias at associate editor team meetings.

Third, we aim to equitably include women as peer reviewers, which increases representation of women authors. 45 Reducing homophily in peer review (same-gender preference of associate editors for reviewers) may also help.

Tracking gender separately for authors of invited articles allows the opportunity to assess author gender imbalance more directly since the editors invite these articles. In 2019 to 2020 we overcompensated for a decline in women invited authors the prior year by overshooting our goal of 45% women authors ( Figure 1 ). In 2020 to 2021 the proportion of senior author women publishing invited articles was 46.2% (42/90), which is more than the average of the previous 3 years, 43.2%, and just above our goal ( Figure 1 ).

In addition to authors, we monitor peer reviewer gender and aim for this to be 45% women. The editorial board is a pool of peer reviewers that is more frequently asked to review, so by design 50% of editorial board members are women. In 2020 to 2021, of 192 individuals who completed two or more reviews, 42.7% were

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. women (based on 136 self-identified and 56 assigned). Of 24 people who completed 6 or more reviews, 50% were women. However, only two of the eight people who reviewed 10 or more articles were women, suggesting that the associate editors can improve by including women reviewers more frequently. One might be concerned that women are less able to review due to competing demands, and inclusion of more women reviewers might pose a tax on these individuals, but this has not proven to be the case at other journals that made systematic efforts to increase women peer review representation. 4 We showed in the past that women were more likely to accept our invitations to review. 1 It is important to consider the above findings in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As reviewed by Woitowich and colleagues, the pandemic may disproportionately reduce productivity and career progress of women compared to men. 6 We previously reported that the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020 was not associated with reduced representation of women authors in RPTH overall, but first authorship by women was lower for COVID-19-related articles than other articles during that time. 7 The current results in Figure 1 extend this finding; we observed a gradual increase in authorship by women since the pandemic began (including for COVID-19-related articles), suggesting that thrombosis and hemostasis researchers have been less affected than in other fields. This is similar to findings from four high-impact cardiology journals, although this field has less representation of women. 8 The experience of other journals tells a different story. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (BBI), a journal dedicated to psychoneuroimmunology, compared the gender of first and senior authors from July 2019 through January 2020 to the equivalent months in 2020 and 2021 and found that both female first authorship and senior authorship declined during the pandemic, though the senior authors were somewhat more stable. 9 Data from 11 journals in the BMJ medical group also demonstrated a gender gap affecting women coauthors and those in the first and last author positions for COVID-19

research, but not other topics; as we observed, this gap lessened later in the pandemic period. 10 Other work found that women were publishing less on physical and life sciences preprint servers and registering fewer new research projects. 11 And, as for BBI and the BMJ, reduced women's productivity was greater for first authors, who are more likely to be early-career researchers, suggesting that young female researchers will bear the brunt of the pandemic fallout, and subsequently experience long-term career setbacks. 

Representation of diverse individuals on race and ethnicity in science is desirable so that all perspectives contribute new knowledge.

Race and ethnicity are constructs that have different meanings in different parts of the world, but they can unfortunately be associated with disparities in health and disparities in representation in science. To understand whether RPTH might be inadvertently treating authors differently based on these factors, we began asking authors Table 1 . Owing to receipt of 28 different responses, we condensed these into categories, as listed in the table.

Few journals appear to be collecting race and ethnicity data, 13 and we are aware of no other reports of results. We will continue to collect these data, which cannot be inferred by methods other than self-report, and as they mature, we hope to analyze the data as we have for author or reviewer gender. As for gender, we encourage authors to provide this information to allow us to examine the data for evidence of unconscious bias in peer review. As there is no worldwide classification of race ethnicity, we also welcome readers to provide feedback on the classification used in Table 1 .

An important dimension for an international society like ISTH is representation of regions of the world. Table 2 shows we published relatively few articles from outside North America and Europe, with stable proportions over time. Submission distribution by region was also fairly stable over time. We aim to grow publications from lowincome countries, where the infrastructure and resources supporting scientific productivity is often less than other regions. To facilitate this our publisher provides waivers or discounts on article publication charges. The editors also provide extra advice to authors to help improve their work. We aspire to provide educational programs in scientific publishing to authors from lower-income countries.

We hope that the thrombosis and hemostasis research community appreciates the transparent approach of RPTH to provide insight into equity, diversity, and inclusion in scientific publishing. We will continue to provide annual updates, which is important to accountability. These reports depend on self-reporting of demographic data by authors and reviewers. We understand that these data are personal and assure that we approach their use with great sensitivity, upholding privacy, and with a goal toward improving equitable scientific publishing. We hope that when we ask for this information, individuals will provide it.

We also await reports from other journals with public statements on their commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. 13, 14 

authorship, peer review, publication, women

The authors are grateful for the effort of the associate editors, editorial board, ISTH staff, and our managing editor, Zachary Gillan, for their support of this work and commitment to a culture of inclusion. 

Progress in gender equity at Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in publishing: calling thrombosis and hemostasis journals to action in support of women

Gender bias in scholarly peer review

Progress on the representation of women in JGP

Author-reviewer homophily in peer review

COVID-19 threatens progress toward gender equity within academic medicine

Gender gap in women authors is not worse during COVID-19 pandemic: results from Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis

Gender differences in publication authorship during COVID-19: a bibliometric analysis of high-impact cardiology journals

Gender inequality in publishing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Female authorship of covid-19 research in manuscripts submitted to 11 biomedical journals: cross sectional study

Are women publishing less during the pandemic? Here's what the data say

Women academics seem to be submitting fewer papers during coronavirus. The Lily: The Washington Post

Update on our actions to promote equity, diversity and inclusion

The Editors Of The Lancet G. The Lancet Group's commitments to gender equity and diversity