Sex and gender approaches in environmental health research: two exemplary case studies of the German environment agency

ABSTRACT

Engaging with the analytical categories of sex and gender in environmental health studies remains challenging in practice but promising with regards to research excellence and scientific benefit. The German Environment Agency reports on two case studies navigating this complex interaction in the fields of health risk assessment of environmental stressors and human biomonitoring studies. It is apparent that the levels of integration of the sex/gender theories and sex/gender data are differently advanced in research. In some areas the collection of sex-disaggregated data has just begun, whereas in others research started engaging with newer gender theories such as embodiment or intersectionality. The practical applications and obstacles in incorporating sex and gender dimensions into environmental health studies are presented and discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Human biomonitoring
• sex
• gender
• multivariate analysis
• gender analysis
• environmental health studies

Acknowledgements

As non-native speakers, we thank our colleague Dagmar Larws (UBA) for her support and English proofreading services, and Katharina Jacke and Kerstin Palm for the critical reading of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Intersex people are born with sex characteristics incongruent with the bi-gender norm, and/or with characteristics of both sexes (Fausto-Sterling 2000; Jansen 2016); they can identify as male, female, non-binary/on a gender spectrum or as a-gender (Franzen and Sauer 2010, 11–12).

2 People who do not identify with their biological sex and gender assignment are commonly referred to as transgender (Stryker and Whittle 2006; Jansen 2016); irrespective of their physiognomy they can identify as the opposite gender (male or female), non-binary/on a gender spectrum or as a-gender (Franzen and Sauer 2010, 7–10).

3 First attempts to integrate sex/gender aspects in health policy making and research date back to as early as 1998, when Anne Burke and Margrit Eichler pioneered in developing the first Gender-Based Analysis manual for Health Canada (Sauer 2018, 210–220).

4 Gender-sensitive research recognises sex and gender – based on gender theory and evidence – as relevant categories of inquiry (Spitzner et al. 2019, i.p.).

5 Intersectionality as a concept was created by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989, 1988). For the methodological integration of intersectional aspects on gender and climate change and adaption, see i.e. Röhr, Alber, and Göldner (2018).

6 In a representative study, Van Caenegem et al. (2015) examined the prevalence of gender incongruence (identifying stronger with the other sex than with the sex assigned at birth) and gender ambivalence (identifying equally with the other sex as with the sex assigned at birth) based on two population-based surveys, one of 1,832 Flemish persons and one of 2,472 sexual minority individuals in Flanders. In the general population, gender ambivalence was present in 2.2% of male and 1.9% of female participants, while gender incongruence was attested for in 0.7% of men and 0.6% of women (Van Caenegem et al. 2015, 1281). But even among the gender ambivalent sub-group, it cannot be automatically assumed that all identify as non-binary / between male and female. It rather expresses uncertainty about whether further steps to a social and / or legal transition should be taken.

7 The collaborative research project INGER [https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/inger/] is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01GL1713) and consists of the project partners University of Bremen, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, German Environment Agency, Section II 1.2, Toxicology and health-related environmental monitoring, Helmholtz Centre Munich, Institute of Epidemiology, and Humboldt-University of Berlin, Gender and Science.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Małgorzata Dębiak

Małgorzata Dębiak holds a Diploma in Biology, a Master in Business and Administration and a PhD in Biology from the Johannes Guttenberg University of Mainz. She committed her research career to molecular and regulatory toxicology. For several years she studied molecular mechanisms of genotoxicity, DNA repair and cancerogenesis. She joined the German Environment Agency in 2013 as a scientist where she works as a toxicologist and expert for indoor air pollutants. Since then she is involved in projects concerning risk assessment for indoor air toxicology.

Katrin Groth

Katrin Groth holds a Diploma in Economics and a Master of Science in Statistics. She joined the German Environment Agency as a scientist for the INGER-project in November 2017. She has theoretical and practical knowledge in data handling and data analysis and is an expert in gender in environmental health studies.

Marike Kolossa-Gehring

Marike Kolossa-Gehring received her state exam in Biology and a Ph.D. based on a toxicological thesis from the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel. She joined the German Environment Agency in 1992 where she worked as a scientist in different sections on the environmental impacts on human health and the environment. In 2002 she became head of the section responsible for environmental risk assessment and regulation of pharmaceuticals, washing and cleansing agents. Since 2004 she is heading the section ‘toxicology, health related environmental monitoring’ where she is responsible for the Human Biomonitoring in the German Environmental Survey (GerES) and the German Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB). She acted as work package leader in the finalized EU-projects ESBIO (Expert team to Support BIOmonitoring), a consortium preparing a concept for biomonitoring in Europe and COPHES, the human biomonitoring pilot study DEMOCOPHES and is currently co-ordinator of the European Joint Program HBM4EU.

Arn Sauer

Arn Sauer is the research officer for gender mainstreaming at the German Environment Agency. He holds a PhD degree from the Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies at Humboldt University Berlin. For his PhD, he conducted an interdisciplinary, comparative study on the implementation of the policy and programme analysis tools Gender-based Analysis in Canadian federal government and Gender Impact Assessment in the European Commission. He also holds a master’s degree in history and political sciences from Humboldt University Berlin and a certificate in women and gender studies from Technical University Berlin. He formerly worked for the GenderCompetencyCenter (GenderKompetenzZentrum) in Berlin, Germany, and was an appointed Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute for Women Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. His research interests are gender equality and diversity governance, impact assessment and human rights, social sciences in environmental research.

Myriam Tobollik

Myriam Tobollik is working as a researcher in the section Exposure Assessment and Environmental Health Indicators of the German Environment Agency for four years. She holds a master degree in Public Health and a bachelor degree in Health Communication. She studied in Bielefeld, Germany, Maastricht, the Netherlands, Krakow, Poland and Trivandrum, India. Currently she is writing her dissertation also in the field of Public Health. Her research interests are environment and health, risk assessment, burden of disease quantification, uncertainty assessment and research communication.

Dirk Wintermeyer

Dirk Wintermeyer, since 2009, is head of the section Exposure Assessment and Environmental Health Indicators in the Department of Environmental Hygiene of the German Environment Agency. He studied at Hannover University and holds a diploma in Meteorology. After finishing his studies he worked for the Research Council on Forest Damage of the German Government for about three years at the faculty of Chemistry at the University of Dortmund, before he switched over as a senior scientist to the former Federal Health Office, Institute of Water, Air, and Soil Hygiene, Department of Air Hygiene, in Berlin, later on becoming part of the German Environment Agency. His research interests are environment and health, risk assessment, burden of disease quantification, and health-related environmental indicators, especially in the field of air pollutants.