PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Krithi Ravi AU - Zineb Bentounsi AU - Aiman Tariq AU - Aurelia Brazeal AU - Davina Daudu AU - Francesca Back AU - Muhammed Elhadi AU - Nermin Badwi AU - Sayed Shah Nur Hussein Shah AU - Soham Bandyopadhyay AU - Halimah Khalil AU - Hitomi Kimura AU - Mama Ntiriwa Sekyi-Djan AU - Ahmed Abdelrahman AU - Ahmed Shaheen AU - Aime Gilbert Mbonda Noula AU - Ai-Ting Wong AU - Aliyu Ndajiwo AU - Amine Souadka AU - Ann Nyandia Maina AU - Arsene Daniel Nyalundja AU - Aya Sabry AU - Bourja Hind AU - Daniel Safari Nteranya AU - Dorcas Wambui Ngugi AU - Elsa de Wet AU - Engy Amgad Tolis AU - F Z Wafqui AU - Hajar Essangri AU - Hajar Moujtahid AU - Husna Moola AU - Kapil Narain AU - Krupa Ravi AU - Kyrillos Wassim AU - Lucianne A Odiero AU - Lucina Stephanie Nyaboke AU - Maram Metwalli AU - Maryanne Naisiae AU - Miriam Gerd Pueschel AU - Nafisa Turabi AU - Nouhaila El Aroussi AU - Omar Mohamed Makram AU - Omar A Shawky AU - Oumaima Outani AU - Peter Carides AU - Poorvaprabha Patil AU - Richard P Halley-Stott AU - Sabina Kurbegovic AU - Samantha Marchant AU - Sara Moujtahid AU - Soukaina El Hadrati AU - Tanishq Agarwal AU - Valerie Atonya Kidavasi AU - Vrinda Agarwal AU - Wilme Steyn AU - Winnie Matumo AU - Youssef Ahmed Fahmy AU - Zaayid Omar AU - Zachary Amod AU - Madelein Eloff AU - Nafisa Agil Hussein AU - Dhananjaya Sharma TI - Systematic analysis of authorship demographics in global surgery AID - 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006672 DP - 2021 Oct 01 TA - BMJ Global Health PG - e006672 VI - 6 IP - 10 4099 - http://gh.bmj.com/content/6/10/e006672.short 4100 - http://gh.bmj.com/content/6/10/e006672.full SO - BMJ Global Health2021 Oct 01; 6 AB - Background Global surgery has recently gained prominence as an academic discipline within global health. Authorship inequity has been a consistent feature of global health publications, with over-representation of authors from high-income countries (HICs), and disenfranchisement of researchers from low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). In this study, we investigated authorship demographics within recently published global surgery literature.Methods We performed a systematic analysis of author characteristics, including gender, seniority and institutional affiliation, for global surgery studies published between 2016 and 2020 and indexed in the PubMed database. We compared the distribution of author gender and seniority across studies related to different topics; between authors affiliated with HICs and LMICs; and across studies with different authorship networks.Results 1240 articles were included for analysis. Most authors were male (60%), affiliated only with HICs (51%) and of high seniority (55% were fully qualified specialist or generalist clinicians, Principal Investigators, or in senior leadership or management roles). The proportion of male authors increased with increasing seniority for last and middle authors. Studies related to Obstetrics and Gynaecology had similar numbers of male and female authors, whereas there were more male authors in studies related to surgery (69% male) and Anaesthesia and Critical care (65% male). Compared with HIC authors, LMIC authors had a lower proportion of female authors at every seniority grade. This gender gap among LMIC middle authors was reduced in studies where all authors were affiliated only with LMICs.Conclusion Authorship disparities are evident within global surgery academia. Remedial actions to address the lack of authorship opportunities for LMIC authors and female authors are required.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as online supplemental information. Raw data used for analysis are supplied in Tables included in either the main manuscript or in Supplementary Information.