Female participation in the editorial committees of medical journals in Latin America

Introduction: Female participation in the field of medicine and research has increased in recent years; however, there are still inequities in the proportion of men and women in medical leadership, especially in management positions and editorial committees of scientific journals. Objective: To identify female participation in the editorial committees of medical journals in Latin America and explore the association with editorial positions and impact indicators. Materials and methods: We conducted a descriptive bibliometric study to determine female participation in the editorial committees of medical journals in Latin America. We included 113 medical journals published in Latin America and indexed in Scopus, updated and current in 2020, selected from the Scimago Journal & Country Rank portal. The gender of editorial committee members was identified on the web pages of each magazine. Results: Regarding editorial leadership in the 113 journals included, women represented 12.9% of 264 members; as for the functions within the editorial committee, of 1,449 members, 28.9% were women while in advisory committees, of 4,575 members 19.0% were women. The presence of women in editorial committees was higher in journals from Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela in specialties such as public health, pediatrics, and anesthesiology. Conclusions: Female participation in the editorial committees of medical journals in Latin America is low.