Study shows most verified physician accounts on Twitter are men

Men accounted for a substantially larger proportion of verified physician Twitter accounts and had more than three times as many followers as women with verified physician accounts, according to recent data.

Twitter has grown in popularity, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, among physicians, who use the platform to interact with colleagues, strengthen professional developments and disseminate scientific information to the public, according to Shivani Majmudar, MSJ, a first-year medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

“However, social media is only as good of a tool as the user’s ability to gain a prominent online following,” she said during a prerecorded presentation for the Women in Medicine Summit. “On Twitter, this is closely related to verification status.”

At the start of the pandemic, Twitter announced efforts to boost verified health experts on the platform and elevate accounts that provide credible COVID-19 updates, according to Majmudar and colleagues. For the study, the researchers investigated whether Twitter verification status “as an indication of both authenticity and authority” varied among male and female physicians. The analysis included a cross-sectional sample of verified physician Twitter accounts that was pulled in November 2020.

Among 757 verified physician accounts, Majmudar and colleagues reported that only 29.3% were women.

In addition, men with verified physician accounts reached a wider audience compared with women (92,808 followers vs. 28,627 followers). On average, men gained 3.2 times as many followers as women for each new user that they followed, Majmudar said. There was no significant difference between the number of people that verified male and female physicians followed, “suggesting that all account holders interact with similarly sized academic circles,” Majmudar added.

“Our study results support that women in medicine continue to face multiple challenges to being recognized and respected within their professional circles,” she said. “In today’s digital age, verification on social media serves as a new form of academic currency and can lead to many new professional opportunities. Our findings suggest that gender-based disparities on Twitter, even among verified, trusted physician voices, may present as an additional barrier against the advancement of women in medicine.”