Abstract
Introduction
Recent social justice movements have highlighted the need for improved diversity and
inclusion. These movements have emphasized the need for inclusivity of all genders
and races in all sectors including surgical editorial boards. There is currently not
an established, standardized method to assess the gender, racial, and ethnic makeup
of surgical editorial board rosters, yet artificial intelligence is a method that
can be utilized to determine gender and race in an unbiased manner. The aim of the
present study is to determine if recent social justice movements correlate with an
increase in diversity-themed articles published and if there is an increase in the
gender and racial makeup of surgical editorial boards determined by artificial intelligence
software.
Methods
Impact factor was used to assess and rank highly regarded general surgery journals.
The website of each of these journals was examined for pledges of diversity in their
mission statements and core beliefs of conduct. To determine the number of diversity-themed
articles that were published during 2016 and 2021, each surgical journal was analyzed
for diversity-themed articles using 10 specific keywords in PubMed. To determine the
racial and gender makeup of editorial boards in 2016 and 2021, we obtained the current
and the 2016 editorial board roster. Roster member images were collected from academic
institutional websites. Betaface facial recognition software was used to assess the
images. The software assigned the gender, race and ethnicity of the image supplied.
Betaface results were analyzed using a Chi Square Test of Independence.
Results
We analyzed 17 surgical journals. Only four of 17 journals were found to have diversity
pledges on their website. For diversity themed publications, 1% of articles in 2016
and 2.7% in 2021 were published specifically about diversity. There was a significant
increase in the amount of diversity articles/journal published per year in 2016 (6.59)
compared to 2021 (25.94, P < 0.001). There was no correlation between impact factor and articles that publish
diversity keywords. 1968 editorial board member images were analyzed using Betaface
software to determine gender and race in both time periods. There was no significant
increase in diversity of editorial board members regarding gender, race, and ethnicity
temporally from 2016 to 2021.
Conclusions
In the present study, we found that although the number of diversity-themed articles
has increased over the last 5 y, however the gender and racial makeup of surgical
editorial boards has not changed. Further initiatives are needed to better track and
diversify the gender and racial composition of surgical editorial boards.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Surgical ResearchAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Diversity improves performance and outcomes.J Natl Med Assoc. 2019; 111: 383-392
- Gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation of editors at leading medical and scientific journals: a cross-sectional survey.JAMA Intern Med. 2021; 181: 1248-1251
- Gender distribution among surgical journals' editorial boards: empowering women surgeon scientists.Surgery. 2021; 169: 1346-1351
- Identifying facial phenotypes of genetic disorders using deep learning.Nat Med. 2019; 25: 60-64
- A facial recognition mobile app for patient safety and biometric identification: design, development, and validation.JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2019; 7e11472
- Automatic infants’ pain assessment by dynamic facial representation: effects of profile view, gestational age, gender, and race.J Clin Med. 2018; 7: 1-16
- Cultural competence and ethnic diversity in healthcare.Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open. 2019; 7: e2219
- Racial and ethnic Disparities in COVID-19-related infections, hospitalizations, and deaths : a systematic review.Ann Intern Med. 2021; 174: 362-373
- Scientific Journals Commit to Diversity but Lack the Data.New York Times, Manhattan, NY2021
- Benchmarking accomplishments of leaders in American surgery and justification for enhancing diversity and inclusion.Ann Surg. 2020; 272: 897-903
- Surgical time out: our counts are still short on racial diversity in academic surgery.Am J Surg. 2018; 215: 542-548
- “Diversity in surgery-how do we change the narrative: pipeline to professor?”.Am Surg. 2021; 87: 1718-1721
- Looking beyond the numbers: increasing diversity and inclusion through holistic review in general surgery recruitment.J Surg Educ. 2021; 78: 763-769
- Facial recognition software in clinical dysmorphology.Curr Opin Pediatr. 2018; 30: 701-706
- Facial plastic surgery and face recognition algorithms: interaction and challenges. A scoping review and future directions.J Stomatol Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2020; 121: 696-703
- Trending diversity: reviewing four-decades of graduating fellows and the current leadership in pediatric surgery.J Pediatr Surg. 2021; 56: 1294-1298
- A novel use of artificial intelligence to examine diversity and hospital performance.J Surg Res. 2021; 260: 377-382
- Facial Recognition’s “Dirty Little Secret”: Millions of Online Photos Scraped Without Consent.NBC News, New York, NY2019
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 16, 2023
Accepted:
November 20,
2022
Received in revised form:
November 15,
2022
Received:
March 8,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.
