Center Communications – Global Reproductive Health at Duke

Meet Sierra Remington, 2025 SRT Program

June 2, 2025June 12, 2025 by Maren WebsterNo Comments

Sierra Remington is a rising junior majoring in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in the Arabic concentration and minoring in Biology and Global Health. She and the rest of the SRT cohort are arriving in Kisumu this week! Keep reading to get to know Sierra! Question: What about your upcoming trip to Kenya are you most looking forward to? Answer: I am most looking forward to seeing the process for the project we have been working on. Sometimes just talking about it and working behind the scenes makes it hard to picture the goal, and I think being there and being with the team will help with that. Q: What do you hope to do after graduation? A: I hope to become a military physician assistant and to continue to improve my Arabic skills by working with refugees. Q: What are you involved in outside of your studies? Can you tell us more? A: I am on the club volleyball team and on the executive board...

Meet Ella Bassett, 2025 SRT Program

May 22, 2025 by Maren WebsterNo Comments

Ella Bassett is a rising junior majoring in Biology and Global Health. Keep reading to get to know this member of the wonderful 2025 SRT cohort headed to Kenya in June! Question: What about your upcoming trip to Kenya are you most looking forward to? Answer: I am most excited to meet the team members coordinating the mSaada study in Kisumu. After engaging with the Elimisha study from my home at Duke, I’ve found that I have so much to learn about the local burden of disease and how the health system adapts to combat stigma and social determinants of cervical cancer. I can’t wait to meet the research assistants, study coordinators, data managers, and lab technicians who are on the ground preparing to launch the mSaada trial in 12 clinics across the county. Q: What sparked your interest in global health? A: I arrived at the discipline of global health through the reproductive justice movement. Access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare throughout the lifecourse is...

Meet Hope Tiwang, 2025 SRT Program

May 19, 2025 by Maren WebsterNo Comments

Hope Tiwang is a rising junior at Duke University, studying Public Policy with a minor in Global Health. She is part of the Center's 2025 SRT cohort and will be heading to Kisumu, Kenya in June! Question: What about your upcoming trip to Kenya are you most looking forward to? Answer: I am most looking forward to meeting the Kenya Team and getting to know them. Q: What sparked your interest in global health? A: I have always been interested in Public Health, my interests have been in increasing health equity by providing health education services to underserved areas, particularly focusing on children. During my freshman fall I took global health 101 with Professor Ariely, and I learned that many countries experience health equity issues to varying degrees. The discussions with classmates and hearing from the various guest speakers helped spark my interest in global health. Q: What do you hope to do after graduation? A: I hope to take two Gap years and work...

CGRH Attends DGHI 2nd Annual Partner’s Meeting in Eldoret, Kenya

August 1, 2024December 10, 2024 by Dr. Megan Huchko and Maren WebsterNo Comments

The Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) convened its second annual East Africa Partners’ meeting in Eldoret, Kenya on June 26-28. With over 50 attendees from Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Duke, the meeting focused on three content areas, cardiovascular disease, climate change and cancer, with a focus on community-based research and community health throughout the sessions. Several members of the Center for Global Reproductive Health (CGRH) were able to attend, Dr. Megan Huchko, Dr. Miriam Nakalembe, Dr. Frankie Odhiambo and Christina Makarushka. The team’s work on community-based cervical cancer prevention and digital health in Kenya and Uganda was highlighted during a panel on East Africa Cancer Research during the second day. They followed this up with a brainstorming session to identify areas of need and ideas for potential future collaboration on research, training and cancer care capacity across the region. During the final day of the multi-country group visited the Cancer Center at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in...

Meet Our Research Team in Kisumu, Kenya This Summer

June 14, 2023April 4, 2025 by Amber SmithNo Comments

This summer, we have 5 Duke Scholars working with the Duke Center for Global Reproductive Health in Kisumu, Kenya. We have 3 undergraduate students joining the Center as part of the Student Research Training Program (SRT), a Masters of Global Health Student, and a 3rd year OB/GYN resident all conducting research in Kenya. Read below to learn a bit about these passionate students and hear about their work and what they are most looking forward to. SRT Students: Sydney Chen (she/her) Sydney is a double major in Global Health and International Comparative Studies with a Biology Minor. She calls Herndon, Virginia home. When asked about what her time spent in Kisumu looks like, she reflected that “The team and I are working on various ways to improve an app called mSaada which helps women in East Africa receive screening for cervical cancer. I’m specifically working on the FAQ portion of the app by making sure that the answers are clinically accurate and using...

OCTOBER 2022 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

October 20, 2022December 10, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

Be an Outlier for Change Next week marks almost five months since the Supreme Court handed down their decision in Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health, overturning the constitutional protection for abortion enshrined by Roe v Wade in 1973. Although the past fifteen years have seen an incredibly successful assault on reproductive rights and access to essential health care for pregnancy, the Dobbs decision led to the enactment of trigger bans in thirteen states, with an additional thirteen states having restrictive or very restrictive laws that are anticipated to lead to bans in the near future. In the first 100 days post-Dobbs, much has been written about the legal climate, how individuals and families have been affected and the legislative victories on both sides of the debate. One of the most striking things I’ve read, however, was a policy analysis by the Guttmacher Institute classifying the US as a global outlier on abortion rights. While the US has often taken pride in...

Webinar Series

July 29, 2022December 10, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

The Center for Global Reproductive Health and the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health recently partnered to convene a webinar on “The unfinished agenda of maternal and child health in Africa and Asia: promising directions to address maternal mortality challenges.” The panel, moderated by Dr. Megan Huchko, included: Dr. Mariam Claeson, former Director of the Global Financing Facility for Every Women Every Child at the World Bank and now at the Karolinska Institute Dr. Qjan Long, Assistant Professor at Duke Kunshan University, formerly worked at the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, WHO Ms. Jacquelyn Caglia, Director of Learning, Communications for Merck for Mothers Experts discussed the historic and current challenges in addressing maternal and child mortality in the region, and brought up some promising innovations and strategies with the potential to effect these disparities in the future. The webinar can be seen here, with a fill description of the background and discussion on the CPIGH website....

Resources for Abortion Access Across a Post-Roe Nation

June 30, 2022December 10, 2024 by Amber SmithNo Comments

Pictured above: People marching in Boulder, Colorado for Reproductive Health Rights in May of 2022 with signs that say “Your right to abortion should not depend on your zip code.” Unfortunately, though, zip codes shaping access to abortions may very much be more of a reality with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The New York Times reveals how the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Mississippi law could weaken or even overturn Roe v. Wade which could ultimately lead to legal abortion access dramatically decreasing, particularly in the American South and Midwest (Bui et al., 2021). This geographic discrepancy is even more reinforced through social class differences and communities that are “disproportionately Black, Latina, teenagers, uninsured, and undocumented immigrants” (Miller & Sanger-Katz, 2022). Ultimately, leading not only to be a social justice issue and human rights issue, but also a racial justice issue. Bui et al. quotes Caitlin Knowles Myers saying, “A post Roe-United States isn’t one in which abortion isn’t...

Faculty Spotlight: An Interview with Dr. Jonas Swartz

May 2, 2022December 10, 2024 by Aarushi VenkatakrishnanNo Comments

Jonas Swartz, MD, MPH is an OB/GYN and an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He completed his undergrad at Duke University and then his MPH and MD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Oregon Health and Science University, followed with a fellowship in Complex Family Planning back at UNC. I had a conversation with Dr. Swartz to understand more about how he became involved in health policy and reproductive health access. “Well, I grew up in North Carolina and did Medical School here, and one of the striking things when I was a medical student was the discrepancy in care during pregnancy for people who were citizens versus non-citizens. And, in particular, thinking about low-income people who use Medicaid.” Swartz described his early medical training and becoming acquainted with the Federal Emergency Medicaid program, which only pays for labor and delivery services for authorized immigrants. He noted that...

BD4RH Spring 2022 Reflection

May 1, 2022December 10, 2024 by Aarushi VenkatakrishnanNo Comments

Our Big Data for Reproductive Health Bass Connections team worked on three teams throughout the year and presented their work at the Bass Connections Showcase. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) Techniques to examine Stigma with Cervical Cancer in Kenya Members: Foxx Hart, Lynne Wang, Alexandra Lawerence, and Neha Shrishail For our project, we utilized topic modeling to identify recurring themes and sentiments in HIV interview data with Kenyan women, as well as develop an understanding of stigma frameworks. This year we were able to learn new technical and project management skills while diving deeper into the emerging interdisciplinary space between quantitative machine learning and qualitative social science research. Due to the many nuances and complexities involved with categorizing stigma, we have concluded that rudimentary NLP is not sufficient for identifying the various forms of stigma in qualitative data. However, we believe that this was a great introduction to applying these methods to an important area in global reproductive health. We hope more research...

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