Gender differences of authors of major Hepatology society guidelines during the past 15 years.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have shown that women are underrepresented as authors of medical research and clinical practice guidelines. This study aimed to evaluate gender disparities of authors of major hepatology guidelines.

METHODS: We reviewed the hepatology guidelines published by the following major gastroenterology societies from January 2008 to September 2022: the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), Asian-Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL), British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG), European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) and Korean Association for the Study of the Liver (KASL). We determined the topic and the gender of all authors of each guideline. The numbers of men authors, women authors and total authors were collected. The trends of women first authors, women senior authors and total women authors were assessed. A logistic regression analysis was performed to analyse the relationship between the gender of the first or senior author and related factors.

RESULTS: We identified 103 hepatology guidelines published between January 2008 and September 2022 published by the AGA, ACG, AASLD, APASL, BSG, EASL, and KASL. The gender of 1096 of 1100 (99.6%) authors was determined. Therefore, a total of 1096 authors were included: 223 (20.3%) authors were women and 873 (79.7%) authors were men. Women comprised 14.6% of all first authors, and 20.4% of all senior authors were women. Only the AASLD had writing committees comprising more than 30% total women authors. The proportions of women senior authors and total women authors increased significantly during the study period (p < .05). Women first authors and women senior authors were more likely to publish guidelines with more women authors. Women first authors were less likely to be co-authors with men authors.

CONCLUSIONS: Over the course of the past decade, the proportion of women authors of major hepatology guidelines has been low; however, this gender gap appears to be closing.