How Much of HERStory is in the HIStory of the International Journal of Sports Medicine?

Abstract

Every paper in the International Journal of Sports Medicine from 1980 to 2024 (n=5,176) was reviewed to quantify female and male research participants and authors. Female individuals accounted for 23% of participants. One contributor to this under-representation is that the number of studies that include male participants is 3,847 versus 1,826 studies with female participants. Also, 417 studies included only female participants versus 2,436 studies including only male participants. Furthermore, female authors accounted for 18% of the total authors over the history of the International Journal of Sports Medicine (1,947 female and 8,698 male authors). There were also 859 papers with female first/last authors versus 1,212 papers with male first/last authors. Thus, this journal has substantially less of HERstory than HIStory, in terms of research participants and manuscript authors. Using these data, we also ‘forecast’ when equal representation might be achieved (when the number of female and male authors/participants at that time would be equal in a given year). The predicted timelines to achieve this were: ~800 years for female research participants, ~ 46 years for female participant studies, ~ 155 years for female only participant studies, ~22 years for female and male authors, and ~ 13 years for female and male first/last authors.

Keywords

Gender - authors - research participants - under-representation

Publication History

Received: 28 April 2025

Accepted after revision: 13 November 2025

Article published online:
18 December 2025

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