Insights & Updates – Page 30 – Global Reproductive Health at Duke

Baltimore’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, named President of Planned Parenthood

September 18, 2018November 13, 2024 by Jessica WilliamsNo Comments

Article by Jessica Williams Planned Parenthood announced on September 12th that Dr. Leana Wen will become the organization’s next president. After current president Cecile Richards announced her resignation, Planned Parenthood organized a search committee in early February to find her replacement. Months later, Dr. Wen was selected to be her successor due to her extensive experience in the healthcare sector; she has been Baltimore's health commissioner since 2015, and is only the second doctor in the organization's 102-year history to take its leading role. Born in Shanghai, Dr. Wen immigrated to the United States with her family shortly before her eighth birthday. They were granted political asylum, and became U.S. citizens in 2003. While growing up in a low-income area in California, Dr. Wen relied on Planned Parenthood for healthcare. She later volunteered for a Planned Parenthood clinic during medical school in St. Louis. Dr. Wen's appointment comes at a critical time for Planned Parenthood. A target of Republican-led Washington over the past...

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: NGOs and Their Navigation of U.S. and Swedish Aid Policy

September 14, 2018November 13, 2024 by Carly JonesNo Comments

Article by Carly Jones Following the Trump administration’s reinstallment of the “global gag rule” in January 2017, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) within the sexual and reproductive health and rights sector have been forced to choose between United States and Swedish aid. With this gag rule, foreign NGOs are only able to access U.S aid if they do not perform or promote abortion within the context of family planning. Under this umbrella even falls such services as legal advice and counseling. Sweden, a firm critic of the rule and strong advocate of abortion accessibility as imperative to effective health policy, has stated that aid will be discontinued to those compliant with this gag-rule: “We are, of course, very important moneywise but we are even more important, I think, when it comes to setting moral standards around women’s rights.” This polarization of aid has made the work of activists increasingly difficult; while many NGOs stand with Sweden in support of safe abortion, to have...

Reports from the Field: Freedom House, a Safe Space supported by KMET

September 14, 2018November 13, 2024 by Faith OtewaNo Comments

By Faith Otewa: One of our goals of the Center is to highlight some of the important work in Sexual and Reproductive Health taking place in Kisumu and Nyanza. We were thrilled to sit down with the Director of KMET (Kisumu Medical and Education Trust), a Kisumu-based NGO working to promote innovative and sustainable reproductive health and education programs among underserved communities. KMET works in the areas of Maternal, Child, Adolescent and Child Health, livelihoods and nutrition, education and youth/adolescent empowerment and quality healthcare financing. The organization has adopted an integrated model to provide a holistic care to women by offering specialized diagnostic services like Family Planning Services (FP), Immunization, and HIV Testing, Cervical Cancer Screening and Laboratory services. A well-stocked dispensing pharmacy is also in place. KMET also houses a Youth Friendly Clinic for its youthful clients of reproductive age. The services offered at the center are affordable. With growing evidence that a substantial number of girls, children and women in Kisumu...

Texas Fetal Burial Law Claimed Unconstitutional by Federal Judge

September 13, 2018November 13, 2024 by Emily WoodrowNo Comments

Article by Emily Woodrow Last week in Texas, federal Judge Ezra prohibited the legality of an abortion law that would have required hospitals, health care facilities, and clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains without consent of the patient. This law was planned to take effect this February as a part of the Senate Bill 8 which passed in July 2017 and was created by anti-abortion politicians. Whole Woman’s Health and other Texas abortion providers filed for a lawsuit against this abortion law on the basis that burial and cremation requirements were a “politically motivated attempt by the state to force abortion providers into closing because only a limited number of vendors would be willing or able to meet the onerous disposal requirements”. Additionally, president of Whole Woman’s Health Amy Hagstrom stated that the law was “designed to shame and stimatize patients and health care providers” in regards to the morality of abortion. Texas has a history of strong abortion regulation...

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...

One Woman, Her Dream, and Kenya’s Menstrual Revolution

September 11, 2018November 13, 2024 by Carly JonesNo Comments

Article by Carly Jones Access to feminine hygiene products is the cornerstone of a woman’s ability to claim agency over her body. Yet, with the feminine hygiene product market generating billions of dollars in revenue, these products are often made inaccessible by their price. This disparity in access is especially profound within low- and middle-income countries, such as Kenya, begging the need for Megan White Mukuria’s non-profit foundation, ZanaAfrica. In Kenya, 60% of girls are unable to access menstrual products. As a result, they are forced to endanger both their physical health and security, resorting to fashioning homemade products from rags, or even exchanging sex for sanitary napkins. Additionally, because of the shame associated with menstruation within Kenya’s culture, girls often remain confined to their homes throughout their cycles, with 60% of this demographic eventually dropping out of high school. ZanaAfrica not only addresses this physical need, supplying menstrual products to marginalized girls, but also provides community resources necessary to educate...

Kavanaugh on Abortion: Many Questions, Few Answers

September 11, 2018November 13, 2024 by Jessica WilliamsNo Comments

Article by Jessica Williams As Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee to become a Supreme Court justice began last Tuesday, it became immediately clear that his stance on abortion would take center stage. The Hart Senate Office building was filled with protesters dressed as ‘handmaids’ from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian “The Handmaid’s Tale,” reflecting fears that Kavanaugh’s appointment would lead to a country in which women do not have control over their reproductive decisions. As the hearing has progressed, though, little information about Kavanaugh’s stance on abortion has come to light. When asked about a woman’s right to abortion, Kavanaugh described the current precedent—Roe v. Wade’s 1973 establishment of abortion as a constitutional right, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey’s 1992 reaffirmation of that decision. While he did say that “precedent also reinforces the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” new leaked documents suggest he may be willing to overrule the Roe precedent. In a 2003 email he stated “I am...

The Rohingya Displacement Crisis and Its Effect on Reproductive Health

September 5, 2018November 13, 2024 by Kayla CheeNo Comments

Article by Kayla Chee It has been just over a year since the beginning of the Rohingya displacement crisis. Since August 2017, Rohingya Muslims living in the Rakhine State of Myanmar have endured the brutal and inhumane ethnic cleansing of their people at the hands of Myanmar security forces. Mass killings, sexual violence, arson, and other humanitarian crimes inflicted by the Rakhine State military have motivated many Rohingya Muslims to escape and seek refuge in neighboring countries. The United Nations estimates close to 900,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled out of Myanmar to nearby Bangladesh. Bangladesh, a lower-middle income country with existing problems of poor economic development, high population density, and limited access to healthcare, has little to offer the Rohingya Muslims living in these displacement camps of Cox’s Bazaar. The camps’ immense overcrowding and unstable hillside terrain prone to landslides and floods make living conditions dangerous with little access to basic needs. The culminating problems of food insecurity, unsafe shelter, poor water...

US Faces Sharp Increase in STD Rates

September 5, 2018November 13, 2024 by Emily WoodrowNo Comments

Article by Emily Woodrow Syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia are the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. All three are caused by bacteria and can be treated and cured with the proper screening, diagnosis and medication. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recently released statistics noting a record high of 2.3 million cases of these STDs in 2017, which is an increase of 200,000 cases from 2016. Gail Bolan, the director of STD Prevention at the CDC, noted that after years of success in STD control, the US has seen sharp increased over the past four years. David Harvey, Executive of the National Coalition of STD Directors, said, "The U.S. continues to have the highest STD rates in the industrialized world.” This is largely due to the fact that so many people do not know they are infected with STDs; symptoms may not arise for weeks after one is infected. Therefore people may be unaware that are...

All in a Day’s Work: Engaging the Community through HPV testing in Kisumu

August 30, 2018November 13, 2024 by Yujung ChoiNo Comments

Blog by Faith Otewa In my role as site coordinator of the Kisumu Center office, I’ve had the opportunity to oversee the “Hybrid Study,” in which we are looking at integrating HPV testing into community health campaigns providing multiple other disease services, including HIV testing, family planning and TB testing. Many of the experiences will linger on with us for many years to come; while some illustrate the challenges encountered in conducting research and community-based care in Africa, others show the power of community mobilization and knowledge. It is the 10th week out in the field and the study team are getting ready to recruit at the 3rd set of campaigns. However, as if often the case in western Kenya, and certainly when we are working in tents set out in the middle of fields, the climate has had a big impact on study. The harsh weather and copious rainstorms experienced in the month of May this vastly affected recruitment. There has...

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