Researcher discusses Puerto Rico study with CG, opportunity to further occupational hazard knowledge, Bangladesh 5K honors water collectors

There's a whole lot going on around the world: This brief from Climate, Gendered isn't intended to be exhaustive but rather your chance to spend a few moments on a handful of items with the potential to disproportionately impact over half the global population — and the ideas that might make a difference.

Study exploring effects of hurricanes, colonialism, and more on pregnant people in Puerto Rico also points to solutions: 'Maternal mental health needs in disaster contexts are often overlooked' (Climate, Gendered)

Corresponding author Mislael Valentín-Cortés shared his take with Climate, Gendered about the findings from his team's new study, published in the journal Reproductive Health earlier this month. Researchers at the University of Michigan and Boston University evaluated the compounding impacts of 2017's Hurricane Maria, earthquakes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and colonialism on maternal and child health in Puerto Rico. 

With rising global temperatures boosting the destructiveness of storms, particularly for coastal and island communities, the co-authors observed how colonial harms faced by the commonwealth seemed to further shape disaster impacts. To help address them, Valentín-Cortés proposes strategies already in development and under investigation elsewhere, from Florida to the United Kingdom and Pakistan.

For more on this, read on at CG.

Scientist identifies research opportunity that could help galvanize collective effort: 'Women’s occupational exposures … completely understudied' (Rewire News Group)

Earlier this month, Climate, Gendered highlighted a study from the Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts indicating that jobs often held by immigrant women in the United States — such as nursing, house cleaning, agricultural, and nail technician work — carry risks for exposure to chemicals that may increase the chance of breast cancer. Lead study author Kristin Knox recently sat down with Rewire News Group to elaborate on her team's findings.

In the interview, Knox noted, “Women’s occupational exposures, like much of women’s health, [are] completely understudied. … All the early occupational studies were only on men." Silent Spring plans to pursue "research on occupation-specific chemical exposures" in the future, according to Rewire.

This study suggests that a broader collective effort is needed to set workplace protections, provide safer products, and make educational resources more equitably accessible. It's another in a long list of examples that show how vulnerability to environmental hazards can be exacerbated not only by gender but additionally by race, ethnicity, class, and more.

While acknowledging the concerning health threats disproportionately faced by marginalized communities, Knox underscored that the risks of these chemical exposures are "relevant for all women in those occupations." Ideally, this framing could help inspire that necessary collective effort.

UN report calls for addressing gender disparities across Rio Convention leadership to improve environmental decision-making (Climate, Gendered)

A new United Nations report calls for addressing gender disparities across leadership positions at the Rio Conventions, which include the recently concluded U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change — more commonly known as COP30. 

Based on data as of 2024, researchers found that men hold 59 percent of the "focal point roles" — or country representative roles — at the UNFCCC. In light of this new report, some may wonder whether gender parity improvements could have made a difference in the recent summit's results, seen by some as "watered-down" and a "missed opportunity."

For more on this, read on at CG.

In Bangladesh, men run with pitchers to honor water collectors (Climate, Gendered)

Around 100 people — "many of them men carrying pitchers," according to the Dhaka Tribune —  gathered on November 25 in Shyamnagar, Satkhira, in Bangladesh for a symbolic 5-kilometer run in recognition of those who walk long distances each day to collect water for household use. It's an essential task often managed by girls and women, and globally it's increasing in necessity as worsening droughts, rising seas, and contamination weaken water security.

Traveling so far can pose safety risks and compromise school attendance. “Run for Her Resilience 2025,” organized in part by the youth-led environmental nonprofit Brighters and by the U.N. Development Programme, was an effort aimed at drawing attention to these gendered impacts. And it seemed to hit home. Participant Ashikur Rahman told the press, “Today I finally understood how much hardship the women here face every day.”

But for many, the consequences of clean, fresh water scarcity can go beyond the time- and labor-intensive collection process...

For more on this, read on at CG.

One goal at Climate, Gendered is to bring an undeniable spotlight to the reality that proliferating pollution, increasing temperatures, rising seas, extreme weather, habitat loss, and more can uniquely and disproportionately impact girls, women, trans communities, and nonbinary people — especially those from communities of color, Indigenous people, disabled people, immigrants and displaced people, people experiencing poverty, and residents of low- and middle-income countries. 

This work cannot be done alone or in silos. We welcome with gratitude your feedback and observations. Additionally, please feel encouraged to share one way you noticed this week that climate and gender connect — and share CG with a friend.