Gender Gap in Climate Change's Impact on Health: Challenges in Policy Development and Implementation across Latin America and the Caribbean

Author: Ammcise Apply

Field of Study: Social Sciences

Faculty Mentors: Monica Adams

Easel: 13

Timeslot: Afternoon

Abstract: Climate change intensifies gendered health risks in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), yet gender-responsive climate-health policies remain fragmented or absent. This narrative literature review, grounded in the Policy Implementation Framework and Feminist Political Ecology, examines the structural, political, and epistemic barriers that hinder implementation. Drawing on academic and institutional sources across seven countries, the analysis reveals that even where gender or climate plans exist, health dimensions are largely overlooked. The review identifies four major challenges (weak institutional capacity, poor intersectoral coordination, exclusion of feminist and community-based knowledge, and multilevel disconnection between global frameworks and national delivery), synthesized into a conceptual triangle of implementation gridlock. By bridging policy and feminist perspectives, this study contributes a multilevel critique of implementation failure and introduces a conceptual model for understanding gendered policy fragmentation in climate-health governance. The findings call for more inclusive, intersectional, equity-driven responses and further research on this neglected policy interface.