World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Barriers to research in oral medicine: results from a global survey

Gender inequalities in oral medicine and pathology research: Temporal trends of two decades

OBJECTIVES

To analyze gender inequities and trends in the authorship of articles published in high-impact factor journals of the field of Oral Medicine and Pathology.

METHODS

The gender and country of first and last authors were retrieved from original articles published between 2000 and 2022. Poisson regression models and classification and regression tree (CART) analysis were performed.

RESULTS

A total of 6595 studies were analyzed for first authorship, and 6627 for last authorship. Only 39.2% (CI 95% 38.0-40.3) of the first authors and 24.1% (CI 95% 23.1-25.1) of the last authors were females. Females consistently faced underrepresentation throughout the 23-year evaluation. The only region where female first authors are not a minority is Latin America. Having a female as the last author increased the prevalence of females in the first author position by 42% (PR = 1.42, CI 95% [1.30-1.54]). The most important discriminant variable by CART was the first author region.

CONCLUSION

Although a slight decrease in underrepresentation was noted over the period, after 2020, the gender gap tended to widen for both first and last authors. It is crucial to implement measures aimed at attracting, retaining, and advancing women in the field of science, while also actively monitoring advancements toward achieving gender equity.

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: barriers to research in oral medicine: lessons learned from a bibliometric analysis of the oral potentially malignant disorders literature

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to assess the impact of oral medicine (OM) practitioners on the literature regarding oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs), focusing on oral leukoplakia.

STUDY DESIGN

Using a bibliometric approach on the Scopus database until September 1, 2022, the top 100 cited articles were analyzed for article type, subtopic, specialty contributions, author metrics, and keywords. The Bibliometrix package for R and VOSviewer were used to evaluate interactions and generate science maps.

RESULTS

OM practitioners, comprising 39% of contributors, played a significant role in studies related to nomenclature and screening of OPMDs. Notably, 4 OM specialists ranked among the most prolific authors, demonstrating denser collaboration with OM co-authors compared to other cancer specialists. However, there was a scarcity of OPMD management studies authored by OM practitioners.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the paucity of OM practitioners, the findings underscored the substantial contribution of OM practitioners in developing OPMD nomenclature and classification, emphasizing the need for increased collaboration with cancer specialists to conduct comprehensive clinical trials for OPMD management. The study highlights the importance of standardized criteria in OPMDs research for better data comparison and encourages further efforts from the OM scientific community.