Gender Authorship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology: Trends and Persistent Seniority Gaps

Publication leadership shapes academic advancement, yet gender inequity persists in gastroenterology and hepatology. We quantified women's first and last authorship across selected journals. We analyzed PubMed-indexed publications from 14 prespecified gastroenterology and hepatology journals from 2013 through 2025. First and last individual authors were used as proxies for lead and senior authorship. Gender was inferred from first names using Genderize.io with manual adjudication of missing or ambiguous cases. We summarized authorship by journal and year and evaluated first-to-last author gender concordance. Among 60 453 publications, women represented 31.5% of first authors and 20.8% of last authors, a 10.7 percentage-point senior-authorship gap. Women's first authorship ranged from 18.7% to 43.8% across journals, and last authorship from 11.5% to 31.3% (both p < 0.001). From 2013 to 2025, women's first authorship increased from 29.5% to 34.6%, and last authorship increased from 17.0% to 24.8%; women's last authorship increased in 11 of 14 journals. Articles with women first authors were more likely to have women last authors than articles with men first authors (29.0% vs. 17.0%; OR 1.99, 95% CI 1.91-2.07). Women's authorship increased, but senior authorship remained lower than first authorship. Equitable sponsorship, research support, and editorial representation may help strengthen publication leadership.