Fairness to All: Gender and Sex in Scientific Reporting

Tuesday 4 February 2014

The editors of the major US journal Clinical Orthopaedic and Related Research have published an editorial (PDF attached below) recommending that research needs to explicitly "reflect that we treat both men and

women" and providing researchers seeking publication in the journal with the following the guidelines:

  1. Design studies that are sufficiently powered to answer research questions both for males and females (or men and women) if the health condition being studied occurs in both sexes/genders
  2. Provide sex- and/or gender-specific data where relevant in all clinical, basic science, and epidemiological studies.
  3. Analyze the influence (or association) of sex or gender on the results of the study, or indicate in the Patients and Methods section why such analyses were not performed, and consider this topic as a limitation to cover in the Discussion section. Readers need to know whether the results generalize to both sexes/genders.
  4. Indicate (if sex or gender analyses were performed post-hoc) that these analyses should be interpreted cautiously because they may be underpowered (leading to a false conclusion of no difference). If there are many such analyses, indicate that they may lead to spurious significance, and an erroneous conclusion of a sex- or gender-related difference.

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Updated:  4 February 2014/Responsible Officer:  Convenor, Gender Institute/Page Contact:  Gender Institute