Women's health in The BMJ: a data science history

Area of Science:

• Medical research and clinical studies
• Gender studies in healthcare
• Publication trends in medicine

Background:

• Representation of women's health in clinical studies has evolved over seven decades.
• Understanding these changes is crucial for addressing health disparities and improving medical research inclusivity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the changes in the representation of women's health in clinical research over a 70-year period.
• To identify trends in the inclusion of women-specific health topics in medical publications.

Main Methods:

• An observational study analyzing 71,866 research articles published in The BMJ from 1948 to 2018.
• Statistical analysis using general linear, additive, and segmented regression models to estimate trends in women's health topic incidence.

Main Results:

• The frequency of the terms 'woman' or 'women' in BMJ articles increased annually by a factor of 1.023.
• The incidence of women-specific health topics rose more slowly (annual factor of 1.004), with fluctuating trends for specific areas like pregnancy.
• Mentions of women, gender, or sex declined until 2005, then increased sharply, with most papers mentioning them by 2018.

Conclusions:

• Women's presence in BMJ research has increased, but the focus on women-specific health issues has varied.
• External factors like medical advances and societal changes influenced research trends.
• A significant increase in mentions of women after 2005 may correlate with the appointment of a woman editor-in-chief.