Gender imbalance and inequality have been issues for women in STEM fields for quite some time. However, the focus on the need for more representation has seen a significant push over recent years. According to a study by the University of Washington, the number of women authors in scientific publishing was only 30% in 2010. Unfortunately, that number has not seen significant improvement since.
Levy Library wanted to open up this discussion to the Mount Sinai Health System community with "Gender Bias in Publishing," part of the Research Insider series. This event featured a keynote given by Rebecca Cooney, North American Executive Editor of The Lancet. Ms. Cooney stressed the importance of journal editors and publishers stepping up and being held accountable for addressing the gender gaps by setting diversity targets. The Lancet practices what it preaches and employs mostly women on its editorial board!
The keynote talk was followed by a question and answer session with an interdisciplinary panel of professionals from both medical and publishing fields. The audience was highly engaged and provided a lively conversation that voiced frustrations, painted relatable anecdotes, and provided hope for the future of women in scientific publishing.
Thank you to Rebecca Cooney, our panelists and our energetic audience! We look forward to bringing you more future programming on this topic!
Be sure to keep an eye on the Levy Library events page!
Each month the Levy Library showcases the achievements of Mount Sinai faculty and researchers by highlighting an article and its altmetrics. Altmetrics are alternative measures of impact that capture non-traditional data like abstract views, article downloads, and social media activity.
This month we highlight Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599 912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies. This study was written by a team of researchers including Mount Sinai’s Karina W. Davidson, PhD (Associate Professor of Medicine and Cardiology).
Citation: Lancet (London, England), ISSN: 1474-547X, Vol: 391, Issue: 10129, Page: 1513-1523. This is an Open Access article funded by the Medical Research Council.
Background
Low-risk limits recommended for alcohol consumption vary substantially across different national guidelines. To define thresholds associated with lowest risk for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease, we studied individual-participant data from 599 912 current drinkers without previous cardiovascular disease.
Methods
We did a combined analysis of individual-participant data from three large-scale data sources in 19 high-income countries (the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration, EPIC-CVD, and the UK Biobank). We characterised dose–response associations and calculated hazard ratios (HRs) per 100 g per week of alcohol (12·5 units per week) across 83 prospective studies, adjusting at least for study or centre, age, sex, smoking, and diabetes. To be eligible for the analysis, participants had to have information recorded about their alcohol consumption amount and status (ie, non-drinker vs current drinker), plus age, sex, history of diabetes and smoking status, at least 1 year of follow-up after baseline, and no baseline history of cardiovascular disease. The main analyses focused on current drinkers, whose baseline alcohol consumption was categorised into eight predefined groups according to the amount in grams consumed per week. We assessed alcohol consumption in relation to all-cause mortality, total cardiovascular disease, and several cardiovascular disease subtypes. We corrected HRs for estimated long-term variability in alcohol consumption using 152 640 serial alcohol assessments obtained some years apart (median interval 5·6 years [5th–95th percentile 1·04–13·5]) from 71 011 participants from 37 studies.
Findings
In the 599 912 current drinkers included in the analysis, we recorded 40 310 deaths and 39 018 incident cardiovascular disease events during 5·4 million person-years of follow-up. For all-cause mortality, we recorded a positive and curvilinear association with the level of alcohol consumption, with the minimum mortality risk around or below 100 g per week. Alcohol consumption was roughly linearly associated with a higher risk of stroke (HR per 100 g per week higher consumption 1·14, 95% CI, 1·10–1·17), coronary disease excluding myocardial infarction (1·06, 1·00–1·11), heart failure (1·09, 1·03–1·15), fatal hypertensive disease (1·24, 1·15–1·33); and fatal aortic aneurysm (1·15, 1·03–1·28). By contrast, increased alcohol consumption was log-linearly associated with a lower risk of myocardial infarction (HR 0·94, 0·91–0·97). In comparison to those who reported drinking >0–≤100 g per week, those who reported drinking >100–≤200 g per week, >200–≤350 g per week, or >350 g per week had lower life expectancy at age 40 years of approximately 6 months, 1–2 years, or 4–5 years, respectively.
Interpretation
In current drinkers of alcohol in high-income countries, the threshold for lowest risk of all-cause mortality was about 100 g/week. For cardiovascular disease subtypes other than myocardial infarction, there were no clear risk thresholds below which lower alcohol consumption stopped being associated with lower disease risk. These data support limits for alcohol consumption that are lower than those recommended in most current guidelines.
Read the full article here