Gender Concordance of First and Senior Authors in Family Medicine Journals

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Women have increased in presence within academic family medicine over time yet remain underrepresented among senior faculty. Mentorship is a mechanism by which senior faculty support scholarly achievements, accelerating advancement of junior faculty. METHODS: We analyzed 10 years (2008-2017) of original research articles in three peer-reviewed family medicine journals. We examined first author/last author pairs by gender as a proxy for mentorship of junior faculty by senior faculty. We compiled family medicine faculty data across 9 years to compare trends in scholarly mentorship with faculty advancement. RESULTS: Female last authorship increased from 28.8% (55/191) of original research articles with a first and last author in 2008 to 41.8% (94/225) in 2017. The share of female first authors on articles with a female last author was 56.4% in 2008 and 2017. The share of female first authors on articles with a male last author increased from 41.2% (56/136) to 55.7% (73/131) between 2008 and 2017. From 2009-2017, the proportion of women increased for assistant, associate, and full professor roles, but remained under 50% for the associate professor role and at 35% for professorship in 2017. CONCLUSIONS: Despite disproportionate rates of last authorship and senior faculty positions in family medicine departments, senior female authors have equal if not greater rates of mentorship of female first authors in family medicine literature. The increase in first authorship, last authorship, and faculty position indicates that improvements have occurred in gender advancement over the study period, but gains are still needed to improve gender equity within the field.