Author Interviews, Gender Differences, JAMA, Surgical Research / 02.04.2018
Multifactorial Aspects of Sex Bias in Surgical Research
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Neel Mansukhani, MD
Department of Surgery
Northwestern University and
Melina R. Kibbe, MD, FACS, FAHA
Colin G. Thomas Jr. Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Surgery
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7050
Editor in Chief, JAMA Surgery
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This study is a follow-up to our previous work that examined sex bias in surgical research. Previously, we examined sex bias in basic and translational science surgical research, as well as in clinical surgical research. We discovered previously that sex bias exists in basic and translational surgical research in the unequal inclusion of male and female research subjects.
In clinical research, we found sex bias in the degree of sex matching of included subjects, and in the frequency of sex-based reporting, analysis, and discussion of the data.
In this current work, we sought to understand the effect of author gender on sex bias in surgical research. In this work, we found that most authors are male, most authors work with other authors of the same gender, and sex bias is prevalent regardless of author gender. Most importantly, we found that sex inclusive research receives more citations after publication compared to sex-biased research. (more…)