Analysis of gender representation, authorship inflation, and institutional affiliation in abstract acceptance: a 5-year study

Purpose Our goals were to characterize associations of author number, author gender, and institutional affiliation on ratings and acceptances of abstracts submitted to one surgical education conference over 5 years. Methods We retrospectively reviewed all abstracts submitted between 2017 and 2021 to the annual meeting of the Association for Surgical Education (ASE). Abstract data included average rater scores, acceptance status, author lists, and institutional affiliations. We cross-referenced last author affiliation with top-40 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded institutions and used a gender determination software to code first and last author genders. Results We analyzed 1,162 abstracts. Higher reviewer scores demonstrated positive, weak associations with more authors [r(1160) = 0.191, p < 0.001] and institutions [r(1160) = 0.182, p < 0.001]. Significantly higher scores were noted for abstracts with last authors affiliated with top-40 NIH-funded institutions [4.18 (SD 0.96) vs. 3.72 (SD 1.12), p < 0.001]. Women were first authors (51.8%) ( n = 602) and last authors (35.4%) ( n = 411) of the time. Abstracts were rated significantly higher with women rather than men as first authors [3.98 (SD 0.99) vs. 3.82 (SD 1.12), p = 0.011] or last [4.01 (SD 1.04) vs. 3.82 (SD 1.10), p = 0.005]. Across all years, abstracts were accepted more often as podium or plenary presentations when submitted by women first [ n = 279, 59.7% ( p = 0.002)] or last [ n = 183, 38.4% ( p = 0.095)] authors. Conclusion Abstracts whose last authors were affiliated with top-40 NIH-funded institutions received significantly higher scores, possibly indicating increased tangible or intangible resources contributing to research efforts. Abstracts with women first and last authors scored higher and were more frequently invited for plenary and podium presentations.