Haag D G, Schuch H S, Nath S et al. Gender inequities in dental research publications: Findings from 20 years. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2022; DOI: 10.1111/cdoe.12831.

Male privilege still evident.

Although the number of women in the dental workforce is increasing worldwide, in practice, in dental academia and in leadership roles, equity has not yet been reached. This inequality in academia is highlighted by the number of papers published which have women as first or last authors on a publication - first or last author are considered the most prestigious positions.

The Scopus database was searched for dental journals (n = 84) which published continuously between 1996 and 2015. Random samples of all articles and of top cited articles were retrieved for each year. The gender of the first and last author was identified. In the top-cited group, 20.3% of articles had women as first author as opposed to 28.4% in the random sample group. The differences in last author percentages were similar.

The authors highlight these disparities as being across all countries and all dental specialities. To promote equity, organisations 'must implement specific policies to minimise men privilege in all career stages [...] and to promote an institutional culture of respect and acceptance.'