Center Communications – Global Reproductive Health at Duke

A Seminar Focused on The Finance Behind Global Health Initiatives

October 23, 2018November 15, 2024 by Emily WoodrowNo Comments

The Seminar Series: Stories From Africa, Financing Health in Sub-Saharan Africa took place at Duke University on Thursday, October 18. Led by Gavin Yamey, the seminar featured a panel of speakers: Sarah Bermeo, Associate Professor of Political Science, Duke Sanford School of Public Policy; Charles Muiruri Program Director at Duke Global Health Institute and Co-founder Association of Research Administrators in Africa; Kaci Kennedy, Associate Research, Duke Center for Policy Impact in Global Health; Godfrey Kisigo, Masters Student DGHO, Physician at Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute, Tanzania; and Osondu Ogbuoji, Deputy Director, Duke Center for Policy Impact in Global Health. The seminar opened with an introduction to global health from a very optimistic perspective. Global health is a cutting edge field that focuses largely on improving the future for humanity. Initiatives in global health are making large and wide impacts, for example, in fields such as child wellness. However, there are also still huge numbers of people suffering from illnesses and burdens that...

Embracing My Role as a Researcher – Sharing My Small Slice of the HPV Research Pie

October 21, 2018November 15, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

Guest Blog: Carissa Novak Throughout my recently completed Masters in Global Health Science, Duke’s Global Health Institute faculty regularly stressed the importance and potential impact of disseminating research findings. Therefore, I felt presenting the research findings from my thesis at the 32nd International Papillomavirus Conference inSydney, Australia, this fall was not only appropriate but necessary. Due to ongoing conversations regarding HPV vaccination coverage and HPV screening for cervical cancer communities are witnessing a tremendous increase in screening rates, especially in low-resource settings, where cervical cancer is most common. However, most programs still face significant challenges in addressing HPV positive women’s low rates of follow-up and treatment. My attendance at the conference was an opportunity to share the findings of my thesis work, in which we found that in western Kenya, a setting where resources were limited for all HPV positive women, stigma and isolation were the main differentiating features between women who accessed follow-up and those who did not. Interestingly, I presented...

Partner Updates: Uganda

October 2, 2018November 15, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

Our Ugandan colleagues at the Makerere College of Health Sciences have been busy over the past few months. Center members’ work has focused on various aspects of cervical cancer, from prevention to diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Miriam Nakalembe is still leading the NCI-funded effort to evaluate community-based strategies for cervical cancer detection, in partnership with Dr. Megan Huchko. Building on this work, she is a co-investigator on a recently funded two-year project through the Fogarty International Center. The grant seeks to develop a portable imaging technique, called a smartphone confocal endoscope. The new technology would visualize cellular details of human cervix in vivo without taking a biopsy, and after validation would be adapted to provide a low-cost diagnostic tool for other diseases in both resource poor and resource rich settings. Dr. Jane Namugga continues her work with Dr. Paula Lee. The pair have completed data collection for a project to determine rates of completion and adverse events associated with receiving chemotherapy...

Director’s Blog: Fall 2018

October 1, 2018November 15, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

A month into the start of the new school year is a good time to reflect on the value the Center can bring to an academic setting like Duke. More salient is the recognition of the value that students and learners bring to Center. This is my third semester teaching Global Sexual and Reproductive Health, one of the core Center courses. The undergraduates continue to impress me with the experience and passion they bring to the classroom, to their research assignments and to their lives in the Duke community. Every year, I learn new things and gain new perspective from the discussions and viewpoints in brought forth in the course. This year, I’m leading two additional student research initiatives in which I already recognize that I’ll learn much more than I will teach the students. I have been working with students through the Big Data for Reproductive Health project since May, when Amy Finnegan and I helped manage a Data Plus...

Teammate Spotlight: Sandra Oketch

September 13, 2018November 13, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

Sandra Yvonne Oketch has been working with Dr. Megan Huchko and the FACES team the Nyanza Region of western Kenya for the past ten years. She has 10 years’ work experience in both health research and program set up in maternal reproductive health and HIV/ AIDS care and prevention. She started as a Clinical and Community Health Advisor at FACES, where she became interested in the cervical cancer screening and prevention program. After going back to school to complete her degree, she is now the study coordinator of a cluster randomized trial testing two implementation strategies for HPV testing. Her roles include managing the study team, partnering with the reproductive health team to implement study activities and evaluating some of the study data. The work of enrolling and following up almost ten thousand women is not without challenges. In addition to the inherent challenges of coordinating a study that size, Oketch has had to deal with flooding, flyaway tents, political...

Data+ Team Introduces Novel Visualization Methods to Understand Contraceptive Trends

August 16, 2018November 13, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

Saumya Sao (T ’20, Gender, Feminist and Sexuality; Global Health) and Melanie Lai Wei (Masters’ Candidate, Statistical Science) were proud to share the results of their 10-week Data+ project, Big Data for Reproductive Health, or BD4RH. The pair was just one of 25 teams that spent the summer using data-driven approaches to solve interdisciplinary challenges. The BD4RH team, led by Amy Finnegan and Megan Huchko, sought to build a web-based application that will allow users to visualize and analyze contraceptive calendar data from the DHS. To ground their project, they did a mapping exercise to identify currently available tools, identifying core elements they liked and key areas a new tool could improve. Using this data, and user feedback from various stakeholders in the field, they created a website that hosts four different data visualization methods to interpret trends in contraceptive use from the DHS contraceptive calendar. The site currently uses Kenya data to demonstrate efficacy, but datasets will be added...

Director’s Blog: Summer 2018

July 9, 2018November 12, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

As we close out the academic year and head into the hot North Carolina summer, the halls of Trent get a lot quieter. To some, this calm may suggest a mass exodus to the beach or some other vacation destination. However, for faculty, students and staff, the empty offices belie a frenzy of work, as many head off to field sites around the world. Summer break represents a time to re-focus on the work that inspires students, trainees and faculty to put in the hours teaching, writing and learning throughout the year. We use this time to launch new projects, reconnect with their research teams and develop or deepen our partnerships. As we previously described, we have a very busy summer planned with work and site visits in western Kenya, while back at home, continuing with the launch of the Collaboratory project and the Big Data for Reproductive Health Summer team. I spent the last two weeks in June in Nairobi,...

RTI team provides key advice to Duke Big Data for Reproductive Health Team

June 13, 2018November 12, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

On Monday afternoon, the Big Data for Reproductive Health Data+ Team met with Alex Pavluck and Alison Mitchell LeFew from RTI to describe their project and get direction in how to develop a “minimally viable product.” The meeting represents one of the first educational engagements of the Duke-RTI Collaboration. The goal for the 10-week Data+ project is to build a web-based application that will allow users to visualize and analyze contraceptive calendar data from the DHS. Students presented their research on currently available tools, identifying core elements they liked and key areas a new tool could improve. Pavluck, a senior manager for information and communication development for the Global Health Division of the International Development Group at RTI, shared his experience and provided advice on how to develop an MVP for user testing. The active discussion ranged from big picture needs to the technical details necessary to move the project forward. The meeting was a great example of key stakeholder...

Director’s Blog: May 2018

May 29, 2018November 12, 2024 by Megan HuchkoNo Comments

I’m excited to introduce a new monthly feature in which we reflect on current Center activities, upcoming events, and important reproductive health topics in the news. For my first blog, I want to reflect a little on why we wanted to create a Center for Global Reproductive Health at Duke, and what we are planning to do. We created this Center to help catalyze new relationships, research ideas and advocacy that will address the reproductive and sexual health disparities we see around the world. These stark disparities in health outcomes and human rights disproportionately impact women, and have remained present in the face of phenomenal expansions in technology, financing and health systems. They are driven by poverty, gender disparities, restrictive policies, and failure to recognize or implement effective, evidence-based solutions. We’ve all heard about the World Bank report that says more people have access to cell phones than toilets—well, certainly cell phone access is substantially greater than access to cervical cancer...

Advocacy for Reproductive Justice

May 25, 2018November 12, 2024 by kb330@duke.eduNo Comments

Earlier this week, Willie Parker challenged members of the Duke Ob/Gyn Department to remember their role as patient advocates in an inspiring grand rounds lecture, “Advocacy for Reproductive Justice: How Much Fight is there in the Dog?” Dr. Parker, author of Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice, a memoir of how his evangelical upbringing influenced his decision to become an abortion provider, talked about racial and ethnic disparities in unwanted pregnancies, and how the Reproductive Justice movement evolved to address these and broader inequities in sexual and reproductive health. He described how limitations in Medicaid coverage for pregnancy and childcare services disproportionately impact the same groups of women at highest risk for unplanned pregnancy. When access to abortion services is limited, as has been steadily happening for the past 15 years, it is these women who are most vulnerable to not be able to exercise their own choice in determining when and how they want to raise their family. Dr....

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