Gender and Geographic Distribution of Reviewers of Two Leading Suicide Journals

Abstract

Background: Assessing the gender and geographical distribution of reviewers for journals would help to identify who has the gatekeeper roles. For suicidology journals, no previous research has determined the reviewers’ gender and geographical distribution. We aimed to assess the gender and geographical distribution of the reviewers of the leading suicide journals.

Methods: We collected the list of reviewers, identified gender and country affiliation using an online search.

Results: Our data included 1,545 responses with 763 reviewers from 48 countries, where the USA (43.7%), Australia (14.6%), and the UK (11.3%) were the leading countries with reviewers in suicide journals. About 95% of the reviewers were affiliated with high-income countries (HICs), and 47.6% were affiliated with institutions in North America. The highest female reviewer presence was noted in Oceania (58.7%) while the lowest was found in South America (0%). The proportion of female reviewers is significantly higher in HICs (52.7%) than in low and middle-income countries (LMICs, 36.1%, X² = 8.72, p= 0.003).

Conclusions: The gender distribution of reviewers is equal in suicide journals with a slight female dominance (51.8%). There is an extremely low presence of reviewers from LMICs.