Searching for sex- and gender-sensitive tuberculosis research in public health: finding a needle in a haystack

Figures & data

Table 1 Available MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL subject headings for gender-related terms

Subject headings	MEDLINE	EMBASE	CINAHL
Gender	NA	Yes	NA
Gender relations	NA	NA	NA
Institutionalized gender	NA	NA	NA
Gender roles	NA	NA	NA
Gender identity	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gender and sex	NA	Yes	NA
Gender bias	NA	Yes	Yes
Sex role	NA	Yes	Yes
Sexism	Yes	Yes	Yes
Masculinity	Yes	Yes	Yes
Femininity	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gender-specific care	NA	NA	Yes

Abbreviations: CINAHL, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; EMBASE, Excerpta Medica Database; MEDLINE, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online; NA, not available.

Table 2 Terms mapped to the descriptors: gender identity/ and sexism/ in MeSH

Gender identity/entry terms		Sexism/entry terms
Gender identities	Roles, men’s	Sex bias
Identity, gender	Man’s role	Bias, sex
Sex role	Role, man’s	Gender bias
Role, sex	Woman’s role	Bias, gender
Roles, sex	Role, woman’s	Sex discrimination
Sex roles	Roles, woman’s	Discrimination, sex
Gender role	Woman’s roles
Gender roles	Women’s role
Roles, gender	Role, women’s
Gender	Roles, women’s
Men’s role	Women’s roles
Role, men’s

Note: Data from reference 38.

Abbreviation: MeSH, Medical Subject Headings.

Table 3 MeSH, EMTREE, and CINAHL headings and free text (keywords) for basic tuberculosis and gender/sex searches

	MEDLINE	EMBASE	CINAHL
Subject headings	MeSH (controlled vocabulary of MEDLINE)	EMTREE (controlled vocabulary of EMBASE)	CINHAL Headings (controlled vocabulary of CINAHL)
Tuberculosis	expa Tuberculosis/	exp Tuberculosis/	(MH^Citation38 “Tuberculosisb”)
Gender	Gender identity/	Gender/	(MH “Gender Identity”)
	Masculinity/	Masculinity/	(MH “Femininity”)
	Femininity/	Femininity/	(MH “Masculinity”)
		Gender	(MH “Gender Bias”)
		Identity/	(MH “Gender Specific Care”)
		Gender bias/	(MH “Sex Role”)
	Sexism/	Sex role/	(MH “Sexism”)
		Sexism/	(MH “Sex Factors”)
Sex	Sex factors/	Sex difference/	(MH sex)
	Sex characteristics/	Sex/
	Sex/
Free text
Tuberculosis	Tuberculosis. ab,kw,tic	Tuberculosis. ab,kw,ti.	TId (tuberculosis) OR ABd (tuberculosis)
			OR MWd (tuberculosis)
Gender	Gender*e. ab,kw,ti.	Gender*. ab,kw,ti.	TI gender* OR AB gender* OR
			MW gender*
	(Gender OR masculin* OR feminin* OR “sex role*” OR sexism). ab,kw,ti.	(Gender OR masculin* OR feminin* OR “sex role*” OR sexism). ab,kw,ti.	TI (masculin* or feminin* or “sex role*” or sexism) OR AB (masculin* or feminin* or “sex role*” or sexism) OR MW (masculin* or feminin* or “sex role*” or sexism)
Sex	Sex. ab,kw,ti	Sex. ab,kw,ti	TI sex OR AB sex OR MW sex
Sex specificity	(Sex adj4f (characteristics OR differen* OR factor*)). ti,ab,kw.	(Sex adj4 (characteristics OR differen* OR factor*)). ti,ab,kw.	TI ((sex N4g (characteristics or differen* or factor*))) OR AB ((sex N4 (characteristics or differen* or factor*))) OR MW ((sex N4 (characteristics or differen* or factor*)))

Notes:

a Explode a subject heading in MEDLINE and EMBASE (retrieves results using the selected descriptor and all of its more specific descriptors).

b Explode a subject heading in CINAHL.

c Runs a search through these fields: abstract (ab), keywords (kw), and title (ti) in MEDLINE and EMBASE.

d Runs a search through these fields: title (TI), abstract (AB), keywords (MW) in CINAHL.

e Truncation: searches for variations of words that are formed with different suffixes.

f Retrieve records that contain two searched words (in any order) and with a maximum of n words between them in MEDLINE and EMBASE.

g Retrieve records that contain two searched words (in any order) and with a maximum of n words between them in CINAHL.

Abbreviations: CINAHL, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; EMBASE, Excerpta Medica Database; EMTREE, controlled vocabulary of EMBASE; MEDLINE, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online; MeSH, Medical Subject Headings; MH, label for the subject heading field in CINAHL; MW, runs a search through the keyword and subject heading fields in CINAHL.

Figure 1 Observed ambiguities in search results for tuberculosis and sex-related papers.

Abbreviations: CINAHL, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; EMBASE, Excerpta Medica Database; EMTREE, controlled vocabulary of EMBASE; MEDLINE, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online; MeSH, Medical Subject Headings.

Figure 2 Observed ambiguities in search results for tuberculosis and gender-related papers.

Abbreviations: CINAHL, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; EMBASE, Excerpta Medica Database; EMTREE, controlled vocabulary of EMBASE; MEDLINE, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online.

Table 4 Questions to guide improved integration of sex- and gender-related concepts in health research

Study element	Relevant questions
Approaching the research issue	Are the concepts of gender and/or sex used in the proposed research project?  • If yes, has the applicant explicitly defined the concepts of gender and/or sex? Is it clear what aspects of gender and/or sex are being examined in the study?  • If no, do you consider this to be a significant oversight? Given your knowledge of the relevant literature, are there plausible gender and/or sex factors that should have been considered? If you consider sex and/or gender to be highly relevant to the proposed research, your feedback to the applicant should reflect this
Drafting research questions and hypotheses	Does the research question(s) or hypothesis/es make reference to gender and/or sex, or relevant groups or phenomena? (eg, differences between males and females, differences among women, seeking to understand a gendered phenomenon, such as masculinity)
Reviewing the literature	Does the literature review cite prior studies that support the existence of significant differences between women and men, boys and girls, or males and females? Does the literature review point to the extent to which past research has taken gender or sex into account?
Applying the methods	Is the sample appropriate to capture gender- and/or sex-based factors? Is it possible to collect data that are disaggregated by sex and/or gender? Are the inclusion and exclusion criteria well justified with respect to sex and/or gender? (Note: this pertains to human and animal subjects and non-organismic biological systems) Is the data collection method proposed in the study appropriate for investigations of sex and/or gender? Is the analytic approach appropriate and sufficiently rigorous to capture gender- and/or sex-based factors?
Ethics	Does the study design account for the relevant ethical issues that might have particular significance with respect to gender and/or sex? (eg, inclusion of pregnant women in clinical trials)

Notes: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Excerpt from Integrating Gender and Sex in Health Research: A Tool for CIHR Peer Reviewers. Available from: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/43216.html; 2014. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2016.⁴⁸

MeSHUS National Library of MedicineNational Center for Biotechnology InformationBethesda MD Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/meshAccessed November 5, 2015

 Google Scholar

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)Integrating gender and sex in health research: a tool for CIHR peer reviewersPeer review: policies and procedures2014 Available from: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/43216.htmlAccessed December 10, 2014

 Google Scholar