Sex and gender reporting and participant distribution in dance medicine and science research from 2023 to 2025

Introduction: Training recommendations in dance are often based upon the current dance medicine and science research, however for this to be effective research participants must be reflective of the population that it ultimately impacts. Sex and gender imbalances in sports and exercise medicine have been widely discussed with calls for a more balanced ratio of male:female athletes in the literature alongside clear sex and gender in research guidelines. An understanding of the prevalence of research in male and female dancers is important to ensure there is sufficient evidence-based research to draw upon to inform teaching, training and future research for both sexes. The aim of this research was therefore to quantify the total number and ratio of male: female participants in a sample of highly ranked (by citation) dance medicine and science research. Methods: Articles in four major journals for Dance Medicine and Science research were studied from January 2023 to December 2025 inclusive. Total number of participants, proportion of male, female and transgender participants and whether studies were male only, female only or mixed-sex were recorded. Chi-square analysis was used to compare sex and gender counts across all four journals with P ≤ .05 considered as statistically significant, followed by Cramer’s V correlation and Pearson residual post hoc test. Results: After secondary analysis there were 97 studies with 7214 participants; 5409 (74.97%) female, 1800 (24.96%) male and 6 (0.08%) trans. Chi-square results showed a small to medium significant association between sex and journal χ2 (df = 6, N = 7214), = 504, P < .001, V = 0.19. Conclusion: Most journal articles did not explicitly detail if they were reporting sex or gender in the results nor journal titles, leading to ambiguity in results. It is therefore recommended that dance medicine and research adhere closely to Sex and Gender Equity in Research guidelines.