LAUSR

When doing research for a recent editorial on publishing, it became clear that women publish less frequently than men, that when they do publish their work receives fewer citations than men, even if they publish in journals with significantly higher impact factors and women in research teams are less likely than men to be credited with authorship. We resolved to investigate this as best we could. We reviewed the authors of the first published issue of each decade, or issues in 1972 and 1982 when there were far fewer authors. We found the proportions shown in Figure 1 (15.4% in 1972 and 1982, 26.4% in 1992, 30.0% in 2002, 32.9% in 2012 and 53.5% in 2022). Because the observed increase in proportions of published female authors parallels an increase in the proportion of female paediatricians over the same time period (https://hwd. health.gov.au/resources/publications/factsheet-mdcl-paediatricschild-health-2016.pdf), we at the JPCH cannot be too self-congratulatory, but at least we have made gratifying progress in the proportion of women who publish in our Journal. David Isaacs Clinical Ethics, Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia