The study from the University of Notre Dame, published August 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed research publications by 3.2 million women and 4.4 million men scientists in more than 15,000 medical science journals from 2000 to 2019.

"Science teams made up of men and women produce papers that are more novel and highly cited than those of all-men or all-women teams. These performance advantages increase the greater the team's gender balance and appear nearly universal," found the study's authors.

However, despite the rapid growth in the number of medical science publications by mixed-gender teams over the past two decades, the authors note that gender-diverse teams remain underrepresented in science compared to what would be expected by chance.

Lead author Yang Yang, PhD, assistant professor of information technology, analytics, and operations at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, said in a statement that women's participation rates in medicine have reached the same level of men's over the last decade. However, gender inequalities still exist in science, especially in grants and prizes, Yang said.