Gendered male and high-income country authors dominate publication at a One Health research organization

Cecilia A. Sánchez , Collin J. Schwantes, Shannon L. Ball, Siyeun Kim, Sarah Munro, Rebecca Leaman, Cadhla Firth

Authorship on academic publications is consequential for researchers in science fields. One’s position in a list of authors is typically used to signal information about author contributions and status, with the first and last author positions regarded as the most prestigious and important for career advancement. Therefore, any inequities that exist in the allocation of authorship (e.g. associated with gender or geography) could affect researchers' career progression. We assessed patterns in authorship at EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organization that conducted One Health and conservation research. We compiled a corpus of 451 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2011-2022, each of which had at least one EcoHealth Alliance-affiliated author, and gathered information on the gender and country affiliation of authors in first and last author positions. Within the corpus, we found that gendered male researchers and researchers with high-income country (HIC) affiliations were often in prestigious author positions. Specifically, we found that gendered male authors represented 60% of first and last authors, 65% of first and last authorships (FLAs), and 91% of highly productive authors (those with ≥ 10 FLAs). Last authorships were particularly male-dominated, with 2.7 times as many last authorships by gendered male authors as by gendered female authors. Our network analysis revealed that gendered male authors were more structurally important to the author network on average and comprised 65% of highly “powerful” authors in the network. HICs were also overrepresented in the corpus, with 72% of FLAs listing an HIC affiliation. Though our analysis was based on articles with at least one EcoHealth Alliance-affiliated author, authorship affiliations in the corpus extended to nearly 250 institutions across 43 countries, suggesting broader applicability of our findings. We conclude by offering recommendations—informed by the patterns observed in our data and based on our personal experiences as researchers—that we believe would help address the gender and geography disparities in authorship patterns we observed.