IHE-LeaD Public Seminar: Bethany Caruso

Join us for a public seminar hosted by the Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) program. Bethany Caruso, an assistant professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, will give her talk entitled “Making Gender Visible in Water and Sanitation Research and Programming.”

Abstract: "Access to water and sanitation are not only critical to human health, but are also human rights. To date, initiatives have largely focused on increasing access to water sources that ‘have the potential to deliver safe water’ and sanitation facilities that ‘hygienically separate excreta from human contact’. While it is imperative to have safe water and safely managed excreta, these approaches have been too narrow. Water and sanitation are needed for far more than infectious disease prevention. In this talk, Dr. Caruso will discuss how water and sanitation research and programming have ignored the specific needs of women and girls, and, in some cases, have contributed to exploiting them. To enable the audience to think critically about gender in water and sanitation, Dr. Caruso will introduce the World Health Organization framework for assessing gender responsiveness, giving examples of water and sanitation initiatives that are gender harmful as well as those that are gender responsive. She will draw on her own research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and the WHO, and will highlight simple actions students, researchers, and practitioners can take to ensure their work is gender aware."

Seminar Background: The Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) program at GT facilitates impact-driven exchange and training at the intersection of human and environmental health. Seminar speakers present their work on impact-driven research at the intersection of IHE, and discuss opportunities for translate their work into actions with public impact and visibility. Sign up for the IHE seminars email list to receive regular updates (contact Gabi Steinbach: gsteinbach6@gatech.edu).