The inclusion of the gender perspective in oncology research

Abstract

Abstract The gender perspective is important in the approach to diagnosis and treatment of diseases, especially in the field of oncology. This study aims to analyze the gender approach in scientific articles on oncology, studying the gender composition of authorship of papers and the gender perspective in the research carried out. A bibliographic search of articles and reviews signed by at least one Spanish author and published in the period 2010–2019 was carried out using the Science Citation Index Expanded database in the Oncology category. A total of 7,523 documents were classified according to the gender of the authors, and a randomized sample was used for evaluating gender perspective using an elaborated checklist. This study revealed the lack of parity in the authorship of Spanish oncology publications, with the number of papers without parity being 8 times higher than papers with parity and showing a greater presence of male than female authorship (58% versus 31%). Regarding the introduction of the gender perspective, a negative response of 68% referring to compliance with the total checklist items analyzed was obtained, and only a fifth of the articles presented gender balance in the sample under study. Moreover, there was a positive correlation between gender parity in authorship and gender mainstreaming in published research. In conclusion, there is a great need to advance the inclusion of the gender perspective in cancer research to overcome gender bias and promote better prevention, detection, and intervention of cancer diseases.