Representation of Women on Editorial Boards of Medline-Indexed Spine, Neurosurgery, and Orthopedic Journals

Background: Both neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery are male-dominated specialties. However, the prevalence of women appears to be even lower in the spine surgery field. We intend to determine this prevalence on the editorial boards of spine, neurosurgery, and orthopedic journals.

Methods: The gender of editorial board members of Medline-indexed spine, neurosurgery, and orthopedic journals was systematically analyzed in 2019, and female representation was compared among these fields.

Results: In the 34 journals included (5 spine, 13 neurosurgery, and 16 orthopedic journals), women represented 8.84% (N = 185/2094) of editorial board members. Their representation was 5.53% (N = 30/542) in spine, 8.58% (N = 47/548) in neurosurgery, and 10.77 % (108/1003) in orthopedic journals. Only 5.4% (N = 2/37) of the editors-in-chief were women. The likelihood of having female members was higher in orthopedic than in spine journals (OR = 2.06; 95% CI = 1.35-3.13; P = 0.001). Neurosurgery journals did not show a significant greater likelihood of having female editorial board members than spine journals (OR = 1.60; 95% CI = 0.99-2.57; P = 0.058).

Conclusions: The representation of women on editorial boards of spine, neurosurgery, and orthopedic journals is very low and appears to be even lower for spine surgery. However, it is still not understood whether or not women are barred from advancing in academics by gender bias within these specialties.