Why are female researchers missing out on Covid-19 research?
Well, Pinho-Gomes A, Peters S, Thompson K, et al., investigated gender differences in authorship of Covid-19 research since the onset of the pandemic and their findings established an under-representation.
That women account for about a third of all authors who published papers related to Covid-19 since the beginning of the outbreak in January 2020, says the ‘Where are the women? Gender inequalities in Covid-19 research authorship (2020)’ published in BMJ Global Health journal.
The researchers identified 1,445 papers related to Covid-19, of which 1,370 were included in the overall analysis, with a total of 6,722 authors. Overall, women represented 34 per cent of all authors, irrespective of the positions- first or last author.
They say under-representation of female researchers tends to create under-representation of issues that are relevant to women in research. As a result, present a likelihood of shallow understanding of Covid-19 owing to gaps created due to little participation of women.
“Gender biases seem to be affecting Covid-19 research similar to other scientific areas, highlighting that women are consistently being under-represented,” they state in the study. “This may have implications for the availability and interrogation of sex-disaggregated data and therefore, our understanding of Covid-19.” Read more…
