Gender, Health, and Climate Change at the WHO

Hello Fellows,

My name is Elizabeth, and I've been enjoying reading all your posts. It's interesting to see how despite us all being in different locations and working with different organizations, there seem to be many common themes in our work. I am working with the Climate Change & Health Team at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, so I was particularly excited to see that several of you are working with environmental policy at the country level. I am looking forward to sharing experiences and swapping ideas throughout the summer.

During my first two weeks at WHO, I have met a lot of new people, including a large number of students interning at headquarters for the summer. Of course with these introductions also comes the obligatory questions of "where are you from?" and "what area are you working in?" It's been interesting to see the reactions of other interns when I explain that I am working with the climate change team to better incorporate gender into the health sector's work on climate change. In response, I have gotten a number of blank stares and vague comments like "that sounds interesting." I know what they are really thinking is "gender, health, and climate change-how are those related?"

So in response to these unasked questions, I then go on to explain a bit more about my work by way of example. One of my favorite examples is to discuss how men and women are affected differently by water scarcity caused by changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events. Since in many countries, women are responsible for fetching water, when wells or streams dry up, this means women must walk farther to reach the nearest water source. This poses a greater physical burden, causing additional stress on the back and bones and possibly spinal injury, and also results in the loss of time that women have for other activities.

I go on further to explain that water scarcity is often linked to an increase in water-borne disease as sanitation and hygiene is neglected in favor of other water use priorities and populations may be forced to rely upon contaminated sources for their water needs. Involving women in the design and implementation of projects to promote appropriate technologies like rainwater harvesting and ecological latrines and in the dissemination of messages concerning hygiene and the prevention of water-borne diseases are examples of strategies the health sector can use to respond to the health effects of climate change.

I've found that usually this explanation helps get rid of the blank stares, and certainly works as a great conversation starter!

Counting Down to Nairobi

Now that the semester has ended and my round of conferences is over, I am counting down to my Environmental Policy Fellowship at the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya. My current plan is to start my 10 week fellowship at the UNEP in Nairobi on Mon July 25 after I have written the first two chapters of my dissertation. I have looked over the UNEP website and they are doing some really interesting things. The thematic areas that looked most interesting from the UNEP website were:

• South-South Cooperation, looking at local technology production and transfer within the Global South for environmentally sustainable initiatives
• Health, Gender & Environment, looking at the connections between health and the environment (this most closely combines my dissertation interests with work at UNEP)

As I anticipate learning more about my work assignment, I have begun thinking about the connections between the work that UNEP is doing and my dissertation research on avoidable blindness. Specifically, I am aware of the following connections:

Water and Sanitation Management & Avoidable Blindness by Infectious Diseases

• decreases in trachoma (low vision in 80 million people) and trichiasis (blindness in 11 million people; caused by trachoma) through aggressive programs on the African continent
• decreases in incidence of onchocerciasis (river blindness) on the African continent

Climate Change & Avoidable Blindness by Cataracts and Particulate Matter

• decreased ozone means increased ultraviolet radiation. High levels of UV radiation have been correlated with increased incidence of cataract disease (17 million people are blind worldwide due to cataract) a disease which predominantly affects low-income women
• unknown levels of particulate matter caused by the use of wood or coal burning stoves. This indoor air pollution has been implicated in cases of low vision (again predominantly affecting women) among many other diseases.

While I do not yet know what my assignment is I am looking forward to working with interesting people and learning about how an international institution such as the UN operates.