Gender disparity in critical care publications: a novel Female First Author Index

BACKGROUND: Bibliometric analyses show gender bias against women in scientific publications and citations. We hypothesized that a metric of an individual senior author’s inclusivity of women as first authors in critical care publications would predict gender inequality. METHODS: Using PubMed and Web of Science, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of original research publications in critical care from 2008 to 2018 in 11 specialty and general journals. Gender for first and senior authors was assigned by a gender determination application, and manually if needed. For all senior authors we defined the novel Female First Author Index (FFA-index) = #Female first authors in publications by an individual senior author/Total # publications by that senior author. We produced a novel interactive web-based application using the R package Shiny to increase potential utilization of the FFA-index. RESULTS: Of 7370 publications, 30.4% had female first authors and 15.5% had female senior authors. After adjustment for impact factor, journal, year of publication, number of authors, country, and gender determination accuracy, female senior authorship was associated with a 1.9-fold increase in female first authorship [OR = 1.85 (95% CI 1.62, 2.11); p < 0.001] compared with male senior authorship. The mean (SD) FFA-index for all individual senior authors was 30.5 (42.9); with a significant difference in FFA-index between male and female senior authors (27.6 versus 42.5, respectively; p < 0.001). The interactive web-based application (FFA-index App) produces the same FFA-index output as our study results. CONCLUSIONS: Female representation at prominent authorship positions in critical care publications is still far from achieving gender parity. By creating an authorship index score, we propose a frame of reference for the advancement of female first authorship. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13613-021-00889-3.