A new study published in Insights into Imaging has found a global gender gap among authors of top-cited articles in the field of radiology.
In an examination of 596 top-cited academic articles (those with 300 or more citations) published in medical imaging journals between 2013 and 2024, the study authors found women accounted for 22.1 percent of all first authors and 14.1 percent of all last authors. Articles with women as last authors were more likely to have women as first authors than those with men as last authors.
Women’s representation in medical imaging literature varied significantly by country of origin, with South Korea having the best representation of women first authors and the Netherlands having the best representation of women last authors. Although the United States accounted for the largest portion (34.9 percent) of publications included in the study, there were no significant differences observed in U.S.-based women’s representation among first and last authors over the study period.
Among different subspecialties of radiology, women were significantly more represented as first authors in radiation oncology (38.1 percent) and as last authors in breast imaging (38.9 percent). In contrast, nuclear medicine had a particularly low representation of women as last authors (4.3 percent).