OR24 - Gender Equity in Endodontic Scholarship and Academia

Objective: Women are underrepresented in higher ranks of academic endodontics for unclear reasons. This retrospective study examined whether scholarship and citation impact were requirements for promoting women in endodontic academia.

Methods: Author, reviewer, and editorial board member names from three endodontic journals were downloaded from the 2010-2023 issues, and gender was determined based on first names using Gender API software. H-index scores were calculated using Harzing’s Publish or Perish to measure citation impact and research productivity. Statistical significance was declared at p<0.05% and 95% confidence intervals. Analyses used SAS/STAT to estimate the yearly increase in the percentage of authors, reviewers, and editors who were women. Summary statistics described the percentage of men vs. women at all faculty ranks and leadership roles.

Results: Of the 36,587 authors, 35% were women; women authors increased by 0.5% per year (95% CI=0.3 to 0.6%). There was a similar percentage increase in women reviewers (0.8%, CI=0.6 to 1.0%) and editorial board members (1.0%, CI=0.2 to 1.8%). In 2023, the endodontic academic leadership was 29% women. Women comprised 23% of chairs, 21% of post-graduate directors, and 47% of pre-doctoral directors (p=0.013). Men published more, held more editorial reviewer and board positions, and outnumbered women in all faculty ranks. When leadership role was considered, the multivariable logistic regression indicated that gender was not associated with academic rank (p=0.259).

Conclusion: Research productivity did not appear to be a rank-limiting factor of promotion in academia for either gender. Instead, academic rank was predicted by leadership roles in endodontics.