ArticleJournal of women's health (2002)2017
Are Female Applicants Disadvantaged in National Institutes of Health Peer Review? Combining Algorithmic Text Mining and Qualitative Methods to Detect Evaluative Differences in R01 Reviewers' Critiques.
Article in Journal of women's health (2002), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 125 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration.Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society · 2023Pooled it
- Effect of a Workshop to Break the Bias Habit for Internal Medicine Faculty: A Multisite Cluster Randomized Controlled Study.Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges · 2023Trial
- Gender Differences in Experiences of Leadership Emergence Among Emergency Medicine Department Chairs.JAMA network open · 2022Trial
- Research Conducted in Women Was Deemed More Impactful but Less Publishable than the Same Research Conducted in Men.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2021Trial
- A thirty-year trend of increasing clinical orientation at the National Institutes of Health.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Global perspectives to enhance strategies for advancing women in healthcare and STEMM leadership.Immunology and cell biology · 2025Review
- Beyond the Scores: Gendered Interpretations of Emergency Medicine Resident Assessments of Interdependent Performances.Perspectives on medical education · 2025Article
- Gender-based differences in the representation and experiences of academic leaders in medicine and dentistry: a mixed method study from Pakistan.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- The status of academic interventional radiologists in Germany with focus on gender disparity: how can we do better?CVIR endovascular · 2024Article
- Building an inclusive wave in marine science: Sense of belonging and Society for Women in Marine Science symposia.Progress in oceanography · 2023Article
- Gender differences in peer reviewed grant applications, awards, and amounts: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Research integrity and peer review · 2023Review
- Importance of Breast Sensation After Mastectomy: Evidence from Three Sources.Women's health reports (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Examining Analytic Practices in Latent Dirichlet Allocation Within Psychological Science: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Engagement patterns with female and male scientists on Facebook.Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) · 2022Article
- Predoctoral MD-PhD grants as indicators of future NIH funding success.JCI insight · 2022Article
- U.S. Women Faculty in the Social Sciences Also Face Gender Inequalities.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- The dementia research career pipeline: Gender disparities in publication authorships and grant funding outcomes at different career stages.AMRC open research · 2022Article
- Women Representation and Gender Equality in Different Academic Levels in Veterinary Science.Veterinary sciences · 2021Article
- Occupational segregation by gender in veterinary specialties: Who we are choosing, or who is choosing us.Veterinary surgery : VS · 2021Article
- Gender Differences in Research Project Grants and R01 Grants at the National Institutes of Health.Cureus · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWomen are less successful than men in renewing R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health. Continuing to probe text mining as a tool to identify gender bias in peer review, we used algorithmic text mining and qualitative analysis to examine a sample of critiques from men's and women's R01 renewal applications previously analyzed by counting and comparing word categories.
methodsWe analyzed 241 critiques from 79 Summary Statements for 51 R01 renewals awarded to 45 investigators (64% male, 89% white, 80% PhD) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison between 2010 and 2014. We used latent Dirichlet allocation to discover evaluative "topics" (i.e., words that co-occur with high probability). We then qualitatively examined the context in which evaluative words occurred for male and female investigators. We also examined sex differences in assigned scores controlling for investigator productivity.
resultsText analysis results showed that male investigators were described as "leaders" and "pioneers" in their "fields," with "highly innovative" and "highly significant research." By comparison, female investigators were characterized as having "expertise" and working in "excellent" environments. Applications from men received significantly better priority, approach, and significance scores, which could not be accounted for by differences in productivity.
conclusionsResults confirm our previous analyses suggesting that gender stereotypes operate in R01 grant peer review. Reviewers may more easily view male than female investigators as scientific leaders with significant and innovative research, and score their applications more competitively. Such implicit bias may contribute to sex differences in award rates for R01 renewals.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.