Author Diversity in Pediatric Spine Surgery Publications from 1902-2023

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Presenting Author(s)

David B. Kurland, MD, PHD

Neurosurgery Resident
NYU Langone Department of Neurosurgery
New York, NY, US

Co-Author(s)

DA

Daniel Alber, BA

Medical Student
NYU
New York, New York, United States
Richard C. E. Anderson, MD

Pediatric Neurosurgeon
NYU Langone Medical Center
New York, New York, United States
AC

Alexander Cheung, MD

Resident
Barrow Neurological Institute, United States
VJ

Vasvi Jain, n/a

Student
NYU Langone Medical Center, United States
Douglas Kondziolka, MD, FAANS

Neurosurgeon
NYU Langone Medical Center
New York, New York, United States
Darryl Lau, MD

Neurosurgeon, Director of Spinal Neurosurgery Research
NYU Langone
New York, NY, US
AL

Albert Liu, MD

Resident Physician
NYU
New York, New York, United States
JM

Jamshaid Mir, MD

Research Fellow
NYU Langone Hospital
Paterson, NJ, US
Eric Oermann, MD

Assistant Professor
NYU Langone
New York City, NY, US
SR

Sumedha Rai, n/a

Student
NYU Langone Medical Center, United States
JR

Juan Carlos Rodriguez-Olaverri, MD

Pediatric Spine Surgeon
NYU Langone Medical Center, United States
Nathan A. Shlobin, BA

Medical Student
McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Disclosure(s):

David B. Kurland, MD, PHD: No financial relationships to disclose

Jamshaid Mir, MD: No financial relationships to disclose

Introduction: Studies have consistently emphasized the significance of academic mentorship, especially for marginalized groups. Past evaluations of differential representation among genders and underrepresented groups show trends limited in scope and have not extended to the entire body of pediatric spine surgery literature. In this study, we assess the documented scholarly work from 1902 to 2023 and examine the evolution of author diversity in the sphere of pediatric spine surgery publications.

Methods: A Web of Science query was created to capture available articles pertaining to pediatric spine surgery. These articles, along with their metadata were exported for evaluation, with extraction of the authors’ full names from PubMed, Scopus, and individual publisher websites. Open-source Python packages and libraries were used for inference of gender and ethnicity, statistical processing, and visualizations.

Results: The collection, published from 1902-2023, was comprised of a total of 11,861 articles from 61 journals and 32,715 unique authors. Authors’ full names were available for the majority of articles.

Female co-authorship was sparse and sporadic until the 1970s. This sharply increased in the 1990s, with female co-authorship now occurring in roughly 50% off published articles. The overall proportion of female authors also increased in the 1990s with steady rise thereafter and ranged from 8-20% in 2023 among the top-12 producing journals in the collection. Female first and senior authorship exhibited similar trends in the 1990s, though rates have grossly plateaued since 2000 and large gaps persist among the top 12 journals.

Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latino authorship was very low until the 1980s, with both groups inconsistently exceeding 1% of total authors. There has been a gradual increase since to approximately 10% and 5%, respectively, among all authors in 2023.

Regarding representation of underrepresented groups in general, similar trends are seen throughout many major modern neurosurgery and orthopedic journals, with some evidence of cultural and regional differences.

Conclusion : Despite pediatric spine surgery authorship becoming gradually more diverse, a clear need for further promotion and outreach to underrepresented populations remains necessary.