Gender Representation in Authorship of Academic Dermatology Publications During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic may have disproportionately impacted female academics relative to their male counterparts, where academic productivity and publications by women authors have decreased due to differential burdens including childcare and domestic demands. This trend has not been recently examined in dermatology. Authors of articles, letters, reviews, and editorials published in 2018 through August 31, 2022 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology were tabulated to assess the representation of total female authors, female first authors (FFA), and female senior/last authors (FSA, a potential indicator of academics who are more advanced in their careers). A total of 4,007 publications and 22,324 author names were analyzed. Gender API, a popular gender inference database service linking known gender-name relationships, performed binary (women vs. men) gender estimation.