Objective: To assess whether there is a gender gap in academic publishing within the field of movement disorders.

Background: The underrepresentation of women in academia is well-documented. A recent study found that women authors in neurology comprised 39% of authorship, 29% of women held

senior author positions, and only 10% of published articles had no female contributors (1). No specific investigations have been conducted yet specifically in the movement disorders field.

Method: This cross-sectional meta-analysis involved four independent reviewers who extracted data (as per PRISMA guidelines) from movement disorders-related articles from 20 high-impact

neurology journals (IF 6.6-45.5) 2 and two flagship journals from the International Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Society published between January 2024-31 st of December 2024 (2). We compared data from Movement Disorders Journal (MDJ) and MDCP for the years 2024 and 2014. We evaluated the overall proportion of women authors and compared the proportions of women first, second, and senior authors in relation to their men counterparts. Additionally, we examined the types of articles published and the journals’s IFs. The author’s gender was determined using the Genderize database (3).

Results: Our preliminary review of four general neurology journals, alongside the MDJ, revealed that the contribution of women authors ranged from 35%-43%. The percentages for first women

authors varied significantly, spanning from 15%-45%, while senior women authors between 15%- 37%. We observed an inverse correlation between women’s authorship and the journals' impact factors. The majority of senior authors were men, predominantly recognized experts in the field (Table 1). Compared to 2014, there has been an improvement in the representation of women as first, second, or senior authors in the MDJ, particularly among second authors, by 9%. Despite presence of women on editorial boards, it is striking that only 1/6 journals have a woman as Editor-in-Chief (Table 2).

Conclusion: The preliminary results suggest the underrepresentation of women in the publishing landscape of the movement disorders field. We plan to complete the full meta-analysis. The results

emphasize the need to support women members of MDS by engaging them in research, authorships, and leading roles in the publishing field, i.e. as editors.

Table 1

Table 2

References: 1. Hakvoort K, Conzen-Dilger C, Gutzmann A, Losse E, Tauber SC, Chechko N, Höllig A. Is there a
gender gap in clinical neurosciences? A cross-sectional analysis of female participation in academic
neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2023 Dec;155:105458. doi:
10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105458. Epub 2023 Nov 4. PMID: 37931690.
2.https://ooir.org/journals.php?field=Clinical+Medicine&category=Clinical+Neurology&metric=jif
3. https://app.genderapi.io/csv

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