Maternal Mortality: Why is Race a Factor?

Maternal Mortality: Why is Race a Factor?

by Mohanapriya CumaranNo Comments
The United States is one of the leading nations in medical advancement and spends a significant portion of expenditures in healthcare and yet, we have the highest rate of maternal mortality (ratio of 57) among developed countries. About 57 mothers die during childbirth per 100,000 birth in a year. Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a mother due to pregnancy and/or childbirth complications [3]. These complications can arise due to a variety of factors including environmental lifestyle, predisposing conditions, risk factors, genetics and socioeconomic factors [1]. Pregnancy complications are likely to arise in women with higher maternal age and those with chronic cardiovascular conditions. Preeclampsia is a condition in which women develop high blood pressure due to preexisting cardiovascular conditions and kidney disease. Black non-Hispanic mothers are 2.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy or labor complications compared to white women and 3.5 times more likely to die than Hispanic women [3]. Why is there a disparity in...
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Myna Mahila Foundation Combats Period Taboo in Urban Indian Communities

Myna Mahila Foundation Combats Period Taboo in Urban Indian Communities

by Vidita ShahNo Comments
Although stigma surrounding menstruation exists around the world, this stigma manifests in a way that has a deeply negative effect on the lives of menstruators in some communities in India. In these communities, periods are treated as dirty and impure. Many menstruators are not allowed to pray, go to the temple, or enter the kitchen while on their period. Due to the negative stigma surrounding menstruation, menstruators in these communities do not discuss menstruation. Many men do not even know what menstruation is. Menstruators feel ashamed buying sanitary pads from male workers at health stores and are thus forced to use unsanitary cloth rags during their cycles. As a result of the lack of access to proper menstrual hygiene products and community support, in some Indian communities, young menstruators are forced to end their education after they get their period.  Despite how pervasive this taboo is in many Indian communities, there are a variety of efforts to combat this detrimental stigma....
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Hybrid GRH

by Megan HuchkoNo Comments
Our paper, “Uptake and correlates of cervical cancer screening among women attending a community-based multi-disease health campaign in Kenya,” is published in the BMC Women’s Health. In this paper, we describe the acceptability and uptake of a model of integrated HPV-based cervical cancer screening as part of a series of multi-disease community health campaigns offered in Kisumu, Kenya. We also describe the prevalence and predictors of both screening and positive HPV results among women attending these campaigns. Although there is an increased risk of cervical cancer among women living with HIV, many HIV-care programs do not offer integrated cervical cancer screening. To address the cervical cancer screening gap in Kenya, we leveraged the community health campaigns facilitated by the Family AIDS Care & Education Services and provided multi-disease testing to achieve a high population coverage for HIV-testing and HPV-based cervical cancer screening in western Kenya, an area with high rates of HIV. In addition to HIV testing, the campaigns provided screening...
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Jacob Stocks and his experience working on mSaada

Jacob Stocks and his experience working on mSaada

by Jacob StocksNo Comments
Duke MsGH ’20, Jacob Stocks, talks about his experience working on an mHealth app to support cervical cancer screening in western Kenya.  The app was developed by four Duke seniors (‘T20) as part of their Computer Science Capstone course. Stocks’ experience co-designing the app with end-users, clinicians and community health volunteers in Kenya, was published recently in JMIR Formative Research. In 2019, I worked alongside members of the Center for Global Reproductive Health to develop and pilot test mSaada, a mobile phone app for use by lay-providers during cervical cancer screening. This experience was an exercise in self-reflection, flexibility, and perseverance, as the study team had to acknowledge the gaps in our intervention and work effectively and efficiently to address them while adapting to additional challenges as they arose. Our team, working face-to-face with local collaborators as well as virtually with app developers, conducted feedback sessions with community health volunteers and clinicians in Kisumu and Migori, Kenya. The main findings of this...
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From Dormmates to Research Collaborators

From Dormmates to Research Collaborators

by Aarushi VenkatakrishnanNo Comments
In fall 2019, when Rachel Mundaden and Ramya Ginjupalli (T’22) applied to spend the following summer in Kisumu, Kenya, as part of the Center’s Student Research Training program, no one could have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resultant global disruptions in almost every aspect of people’s lives.  Travel and fieldwork were soon out of the question, but these two were able to pivot to develop the content expertise and skills in qualitative methods necessary to carry out an analysis of focus groups discussions designed to better understand stigma related to cervical cancer and human papillomavirus in Kenya.  They spoke to DGHI about their experience and how it felt to have a published manuscript resulting from this work. Check it out here: https://globalhealth.duke.edu/news/dormmates-research-collaborators    ...
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Comfort Women?

by Bentley ChoiNo Comments
Every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, people gather around to demand the Japanese government formally apologize for their forced sexual slavery system during World War II. Even though it has been over 20 years of Koreans raising this issue, the Japanese government has only tried to offer monetary compensation, and has not issued an official apology. The Asian Women’s Fund estimates the number of victims ranges from 50,000 to a quarter million, but the number has remained vague due to incomplete data archives and stigma among victims after the war (1). A few survivors of this sexual slavery system have spoken in front of global leaders to raise awareness: one of them, Hak-sun Kim, delivered her first testimony in 1991. During this testimony, Kim said that when she was seventeen, she was forcibly sent to the Japanese military’s comfort station (a sexual slavery station) in China (2). She resisted, but soldiers threatened and kicked her to be...
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Contraceptive Calendar

Contraceptive Calendar

by Aarushi VenkatakrishnanNo Comments
Our team seeks to understand how conflict impacts contraceptive use using data from Sub-Saharan African countries. More specifically, we are looking at trends in contraceptive use for women in the time preceding, during, and following the conflict period--to do so, we are utilizing geocoded data for sub-Saharan Africa from the Uppsala Conflict Dataset and contraceptive calendar data from the Demographic and Health Surveys. This research has important implications for women’s health: firstly, it can help us understand the demographic consequences of conflict on family planning, births, and outcomes, and secondly, it can help inform policy interventions that can target and improve reproductive health in humanitarian settings. We are personally interested in this project because, collectively, our team is passionate about understanding health inequities and empowering women by leveraging policy as a tool. Participation in this project can help to provide us a foundational understanding of how conflict interacts with women’s reproductive autonomy in a way that gives us independent research...
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Natural Language Processing Group

by Aarushi VenkatakrishnanNo Comments
We are the Natural Language Processing group from the Big Data for Reproductive Health Bass Connections team. Our names are Lynne Wang, Foxx Hart, Alexandra Lawrence, and Neha Shrishail. Currently, we are working through “Text Mining with R” to gain a better understanding of text mining, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling. Additionally, we are examining the stigma summary scale as well as other texts related to stigma to form a solid foundation on the resources at hand. We are interested in this project for the opportunity to learn new technical and project management skills, as well as dive deeper into the emerging interdisciplinary space between quantitative machine learning and qualitative social science research. We’re especially excited to apply these methods to an important area in global reproductive health. At the end of our research, we hope to become proficient in using natural language processing and gain a better understanding of how it can be applied to future projects....
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Analyzing access to modern contraception and understanding reproductive rights among women with intellectual and developmental disabilities in North Carolina: A mixed methods study

by Aarushi VenkatakrishnanNo Comments
The reproductive health needs of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) have been historically overlooked. Despite having an equal or greater chance of pregnancy, women with IDDs face significant barriers to accessing contraception. Publicly available survey data exclude individuals who live in institutional settings or require communication assistance, and little is known about the landscape of sexual and reproductive health services within residential facilities. To address these gaps, this Bass Connections Student Research Award project aims to analyze differences in access to and use of contraceptive services among women of reproductive age in North Carolina, as well as understand offerings, needs, facilitators, and barriers relating to contraception within public and private residential facilities. Linear regression and clustering techniques will be applied to a robust Medicaid claims dataset to evaluate contraceptive insertion, surveillance, and removal by disability status. In addition, in-depth interviews will be conducted with administrators, clinicians, and social workers at six residential facilities in North Carolina. The final...
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Note from Lauren Mitchell, Director of the Working Group for Sexual and Reproductive Health

by lcm61@duke.eduNo Comments
During the Spring 2021 semester, the Working Group for Sexual and Reproductive Health grew its community of over 115 students, researchers, and advocates working across the SRH field through programming events, the Mentorship Program, and email newsletters. After being founded in the fall of 2019 by Saumya Sao, a Duke 2020 graduate, its goals of building a collaborative community, fostering relationships, and eliminating barriers to entry into SRH research for students were temporarily put on hold due to COVID-19. However, on March 19, the Working Group hosted 13 speakers at a virtual SRH Research Symposium, highlighting the work being done in the Triangle area and connecting students to potential opportunities for engagement. Speakers presented their current research across four themed areas—Digital Health and Data Science, Mental Health, Family Planning, and Innovations in HIV Care—and shared insight on how students can engage with the SRH field, both at Duke and beyond. Additionally, the SRH Advocacy Panel event on April 16 featured...
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