SynthesisBMJ open2025
Gender, race and ethnicity biases experienced by hospital physicians: an umbrella review to explore emerging biases in the evidence base.
Synthesis in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Explainable and reproducible AI: culturally responsive AI for health equity in minoritized groups.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo examine the authorship and content of systematic reviews (SRs) of biases experienced by medical professionals through a gender lens.
designReview of SRs. DATA SOURCES: We searched PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO and CINAHL from inception. Searches were conducted in May 2022 and updated in October 2023. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Reviews of studies reporting biases experienced by hospital physicians at any stage of their careers and in any country. Reviews were included if they used systematic methods to search the literature and synthesise the data. Non-English language publications were excluded. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: The main theme of each eligible review was identified through qualitative thematic analysis. We used NamSor to determine the first/last authors' gender and computed the proportion of female authors for each review theme.
results56 articles were included in the review. These covered 12 themes related to gender, race and ethnicity bias experienced by physicians at any stage of their careers. The overall proportion of female authors was 70% for first authors and 51% for last authors. However, the gender of authors by theme varied widely. Female authors dominated reviews of research on discrimination and motherhood, while male authors dominated reviews on burnout, mental health and earnings. Only six reviews were identified that included race and ethnicity; 9 out of the 12 first and last authors were female.
conclusionsUnderstanding the potential for a gendered evidence base on biases experienced by hospital physicians is important. Our findings highlight apparent differences in the issues being prioritised internationally by male and female authors, and a lack of evidence on interventions to tackle biases. Going forward, a more collaborative and comprehensive framework is required to develop an evidence base that is fit for purpose. By providing a point of reference, the present study can help this future development. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021259409; Pre-results.
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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.