Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Menstruation, a topic still stigmatised

A study by INGENIO (CSIC-UPV) indicates that younger generations perceive menstruation as a more taboo subject.

Universitat Politècnica de València

Menstruation, a topic still stigmatised — image:
The menstrual taboo persists. This is the main conclusion of a pioneering macro-study in Spain involving more than 4,000 participants and led by the INGENIO Institute, a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Universitat Politécnica de València (UPV). According to the analysis, 4 out of 10 people perceive menstruation as a topic that is still stigmatised.
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Credit: UPV

The menstrual taboo persists. This is the main conclusion of a pioneering macro-study in Spain involving more than 4,000 participants and led by the INGENIO Institute, a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Universitat Politécnica de València (UPV). According to the analysis, 4 out of 10 people perceive menstruation as a topic that is still stigmatised.

The results of the study, published in the International Journal for Equity in Health, show that only 6 out of 10 participants perceive menstruation as a normal part of their lives. Furthermore, while postmenopausal women report greater social acceptance, younger generations consider the taboo to be still very much present.

In fact, the experience of the first menstruation is particularly significant in the research. Many participants described how this moment was associated with sexualisation and new social expectations, which in some cases generate insecurity and vulnerability. Rocío Poveda, co-author of the study at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), explains that "menarche is not only experienced as a biological change, but as a social construct that marks the beginning of new restrictions and external perceptions. The way in which menarche is constructed and experienced socially can influence how young women perceive themselves and how others perceive them."

The study shows that receiving practical and clear information at the time of first menstruation is a significant factor in the normalisation of the period, and establishes that those who received this support feel more comfortable talking about their period in different contexts.

Furthermore, the article concludes, based on the opinions gathered, that when women talk to the men around them about menstruation, they perceive the subject as more normalised. Sara Sánchez-López, lead researcher of the study at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), believes that ‘the greatest advances occur when gender silences are broken. The ability to talk about menstruation with men is a key indicator of social acceptance and a decisive step towards breaking the taboo,’ adds the researcher.

Advertising, films and books

79% of respondents to the study stated that menstruation does not appear or appears infrequently in television series and films, and 73% reported the same about books. Respondents also pointed out the absence of menstruation in the media, such as television, considering it a deliberate act in the case of 24-hour reality shows, and stressed that this lack of representation reinforces its invisibility.

Advertising was particularly criticised by those who took part in the study for showing unrealistic images of menstruation: glitter and sparkles, blue liquids or women presented as energetic, radiant and always smiling. ‘These representations, considered by participants to be unrealistic and unidentifiable, feed into the idea that menstruation must be beautified or sanitised to be socially acceptable,' explains Sara Sánchez-López.

Impact on self-esteem and emotional well-being

The study not only documents the persistence of stigma but also highlights its consequences, ranging from the impact on self-esteem and emotional well-being to invisibility in educational, cultural, and health settings. In fact, a previous study by the same research team, conducted two years ago, found that only 5% of respondents had received practical information at school on how to manage bleeding.

Now, the analysis published by the International Journal for Equity in Health also shows how negative beliefs about menstruation can be used to discredit or delegitimise women in everyday life. ‘The testimonies collected from the 4,000 participants indicate that menstruation is sometimes used to devalue their emotions or arguments, leading to stigmatisation and interpersonal conflict,’ explains Santiago Moll, co-author of the study.

Sara Sánchez-López also asserts that menstrual stigma ‘limits the presence of menstruation in public and political debates, slows progress in regulation and access to menstrual products, hinders adequate medical diagnoses, and perpetuates myths due to a lack of reliable information.’

The research team also includes Dani Barrington from the University of Western Australia, an internationally renowned expert in menstrual health and activism in this field.

DOI

10.1186/s12939-025-02630-z

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Stigma and silence: the menstrual taboo in Spain

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Fine-tuning a classic climate model yields better ENSO simulations

A 'tune-up' of key atmospheric settings in the foundational Zebiak-Cane model provides a more reliable tool for ENSO research.

Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), characterized by dramatic swings in tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, profoundly impacts global weather patterns. Yet, despite decades of efforts, accurately simulating and predicting ENSO remains a major scientific challenge. The Zebiak-Cane (ZC) model, famous for being the first dynamical model to successfully predict an El Niño event, remains a vital tool for ENSO studies. However, its original version exhibits certain biases. Now, a research team led by Dr. Lin Chen from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST) has developed an improved version of the renowned ZC model. Their study, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on Nov 17, demonstrates that fine-tuning atmospheric parameters can effectively refine the model’s realism.

"The original ZC model is brilliant but imperfect. It tends to overestimate the strength of ENSO and misplace the associated wind and heating anomalies," said Dr. Chen, corresponding author of the study. "Our initial motivation was simple: to see if we could fix these long-standing biases. Through our team’s efforts, we’ve shown that by systematically adjusting the key atmospheric parameters, we can mitigate these issues and make the model behave more realistically."

The team firstly introduced a modified heating scheme into the model to improve how the atmosphere’s convective heating responds to sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. With the aid of the modified heating scheme, this model can faithfully capture the nonlinear relationship between SST anomaly and precipitation anomaly, a crucial aspect during ENSO cycle. Then, through a series of sensitivity experiments, the team demonstrated how changes in three key atmospheric parameters (heating efficiency, drag coefficient, and frictional coefficient), individually and in combination, affected five fundamental ENSO metrics: amplitude, periodicity, seasonality, spatial diversity, and skewness (asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña).

A key finding was that these parameters interact in a complex—"non-linear" way.

"We found that the parameters' combined impact was not just a simple sum of their individual effects," said Ms. Xiaojun Wei, lead author of this study and a master student at NUIST. "You can't just tune one parameter at a time and expect the best result. In other words, one can't just tweak one knob at a time; rather, one needs to consider how the relevant ocean-atmosphere coupling processes interact as a whole when tuning the parameters."

By understanding how the parameters interact, the team was able to find a “sweet spot”—a new set of parameters that work in harmony. “This "updated" MZC_XJH model shows significant improvement, particularly in simulating a more realistic ENSO amplitude and correcting the eastward displacement bias of the heating and wind anomalies. While biases in simulating ENSO diversity and skewness remain, the study provides clear guidance on how to adjust the model for specific research needs,” said Dr. Chen.

"There's no single set of parameters that can perfectly reproduce every feature of ENSO," concluded Ms. Wei. "However, by fine-tuning these atmospheric settings, the ZC framework becomes an even more powerful and versatile tool for exploring the complex dynamics of El Niño and La Niña.”

The researchers believe, in the future, further refinement of key parameters in the oceanic component of the model may help enhance its realism even more and bring us one step closer to understanding and predicting ENSO with higher confidence.

The research contributors include Xiaojun Wei and Lin Chen from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China; Min Sun from Anhui Climate Center, Hefei, China; Ruihuang Xie from Department of Marine Meteorology, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China; Rong-Hua Zhang from School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.

Journal

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s00376-025-4423-8

Article Title

Fine-tuning Atmospheric Parameters for Improving ENSO Simulation in the Zebiak–Cane Model

Article Publication Date

17-Nov-2025

A study by Fisabio analyses how having animals in the early years of life can influence children's emotional development

The research, carried out as part of the INMA Project with the participation of the UJI, provides evidence on the role of pets in children's mental health

Universitat Jaume I

A study by Fisabio analyses how having animals in the early years of life can influence children's emotional development — image:
In the image: Blanca Sarzo, Llúcia González, Marisa Estarlich and Marisa Rebagliato.
A research team from the INMA Project (Childhood and Environment), which includes professor Marisa Rebagliato from the Predepartmental Unit of Medicine at the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, has analysed how pet ownership during early childhood may be related to emotional and behavioural well-being in children. The results suggest that both the type of pet and the timing of coexistence may have different effects on emotional development.
The INMA Project, coordinated by the Spanish Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), is a Spanish multicentre cohort designed to study the impact of environmental factors (air, water, diet, surroundings) on child development. The study was conducted by researchers from Fisabio Foundation (Valencian Regional Ministry of Health), CIBERESP, Universitat de València, University of Oviedo, University of the Basque Country (EHU), Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), supported by Fundación “la Caixa”, and IIS Biogipuzkoa.
Published in the *World Journal of Pediatrics* under the title “Impact of pet ownership in early childhood at ages 1 and 4–5 years on mental health at ages 7–8: findings from the INMA project”, the study analysed data from 1,893 Spanish families from the Valencia, Sabadell, Asturias, and Gipuzkoa cohorts.
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Credit: FISABIO

A research team from the INMA Project (Childhood and Environment), which includes professor Marisa Rebagliato from the Predepartmental Unit of Medicine at the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, has analysed how pet ownership during early childhood may be related to emotional and behavioural well-being in children. The results suggest that both the type of pet and the timing of coexistence may have different effects on emotional development.

The INMA Project, coordinated by the Spanish Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), is a Spanish multicentre cohort designed to study the impact of environmental factors (air, water, diet, surroundings) on child development. The study was conducted by researchers from Fisabio Foundation (Valencian Regional Ministry of Health), CIBERESP, Universitat de València, University of Oviedo, University of the Basque Country (EHU), Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), supported by Fundación “la Caixa”, and IIS Biogipuzkoa.

Published in the World Journal of Pediatrics under the title “Impact of pet ownership in early childhood at ages 1 and 4–5 years on mental health at ages 7–8: findings from the INMA project”, the study analysed data from 1,893 Spanish families from the Valencia, Sabadell, Asturias, and Gipuzkoa cohorts.

Pets as part of a child’s developmental environment

The researchers examined the presence of various types of pets —dogs, cats, birds, and “other animals” (rodents, fish, reptiles)— in households when children were aged 1 and 4–5 years, and explored possible links to emotional (“internalising”) issues (such as anxiety, depression, or somatization) and behavioural (“externalizing”) issues (such as rule-breaking or hyperactivity) at ages 7–8.

After adjusting for multiple sociodemographic and family factors, the analyses revealed that continuous ownership of “other animals” (such as fish, turtles, or hamsters) was associated with a protective effect against emotional problems, while having cats only at ages 4–5 showed a mild association with more emotional or behavioral symptoms. No significant differences were observed for dogs, birds, or for owning any pet in general.

Beyond the numbers

“These findings do not necessarily imply causality —other unmeasured factors like attachment to the pet, loss of animals (and the grief this may cause), living conditions, or parenting differences could also play a role”, explains Llúcia González, CIBERESP researcher at Fisabio and first author of the paper.

In other words, the association between owning a cat at ages 4–5 and a higher risk of emotional or behavioural symptoms in middle childhood “should be interpreted with caution”. “There may be selection biases (for instance, certain family profiles might be more likely to have cats), changes in pet care, or differences in how parents perceive their child’s behaviour”, adds Marisa Estarlich, co-author and researcher at Fisabio, UV, and CIBERESP.

Conversely, the apparently protective effect of “other animals” (rodents, fish, reptiles, etc.) suggests that less demanding pets might help create more stable relationships, potentially enhancing children’s psychological well-being. “Including these animals in daily routines may help children develop responsibility in an environment that fosters affection and empathy”, notes Ainara Andiarena, researcher with the BEHRG Group at EHU. Another author, Blanca Sarzo (CIBERESP), concludes that “to strengthen these findings, it would be useful to replicate the study with a larger sample and a broader age range to assess long-term effects”.

Journal

World Journal of Pediatrics

DOI

10.1007/s12519-025-00942-2