Gender inequalities in oral medicine and pathology research: Temporal trends of two decades.

Objectives: To analyze gender inequities and trends in the authorship of articles published in high-impact factor journals of the field of Oral Medicine and Pathology.

Methods: The gender and country of first and last authors were retrieved from original articles published between 2000 and 2022. Poisson regression models and classification and regression tree (CART) analysis were performed.

Results: A total of 6595 studies were analyzed for first authorship, and 6627 for last authorship. Only 39.2% (CI 95% 38.0-40.3) of the first authors and 24.1% (CI 95% 23.1-25.1) of the last authors were females. Females consistently faced underrepresentation throughout the 23-year evaluation. The only region where female first authors are not a minority is Latin America. Having a female as the last author increased the prevalence of females in the first author position by 42% (PR = 1.42, CI 95% [1.30-1.54]). The most important discriminant variable by CART was the first author region.

Conclusion: Although a slight decrease in underrepresentation was noted over the period, after 2020, the gender gap tended to widen for both first and last authors. It is crucial to implement measures aimed at attracting, retaining, and advancing women in the field of science, while also actively monitoring advancements toward achieving gender equity.