Babies were crying. Mothers were patting them on the back. Names were being called for appointments. “With all this information, what will you do about it?” Florence Mawere, a research technician with the Center for Global Reproductive Health, was taking us on a tour of the Lumumba Sub-County hospital in Kisumu, Kenya and specifically demonstrating her work testing samples for HPV in the lab. She asked us that question at the end of the day, referring to a different project we were working on. At that moment, though, we had a different idea.   Isabel, Melat, and I (Sydney) spent two month ..read more

Vaccine hesitancy has long remained a pervasive and global issue. The unwillingness to receive vaccines despite their availability and accessibility, remains a major global health issue. This phenomenon was especially felt during the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago. Misinformation and limited trust in institutions are main factors that increased vaccine hesitancy during this time. Unfortunately, we are still seeing patterns of vaccine hesitancy today, particularly in pregnant individuals. As winter approaches, 2023 will be the first year that four vaccines are recommended during pregnancy. Ho ..read more

*trigger warning: mention of death   Say her name. Frentorish “Tori” Bowie.  Dr. Shalon Irving.  Tatia Oden French.  Kira Dixon Johnson.  Yolanda “Shiphrah” Kadima.  Amber Rose Isaac. The list could continue extensively.   I lead with these women’s names because sometimes they get lost in the horrific statistics that that show a Black women is almost 3 times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth related causes than a non-Hispanic white women (Craft-Blacksheare & Kahn, 2023). The maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2021 was 69.9 deaths per ..read more

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 Mino ..read more

In “SRH in Palestine: A Medical Student’s Experience in Health Education,” Duha Shelah, a medical student at An-Najah National University, explains the strengths and weakness in sexual reproductive health care in Palestine. Shelah has worked as a volunteer health educator for the Palestinian medical Relief Society since 2020, working with communities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Surprisingly, the majority of Palestinian women receive adequate antenatal care and had a skilled health staff at livebirths. However, a lot of the research on Palestinian reproductive and sexual health is ..read more

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a sensitive modality for detection of breast cancer; yet, as its use in screening is expanded from high-risk patients to intermediate- and average-risk individuals, positive predictive value deteriorates, leading to unnecessary biopsies and follow-up. To improve the overall accuracy of breast cancer diagnosis and allow for personalization of patient management, Witowski et al., reporting in Science Translational Medicine(1), propose an artificial intelligence-based solution. A system of deep neural networks was trained to output the probability of malignancy ..read more

Almost 20% of women aged 15 to 44 years old douche, which is the harmful act of cleaning or washing out the inside of the vagina with a mixture of fluids. Douches are often sold at as prepackaged mixtures containing water with some combination of iodine, vinegar, or baking soda and squirted into the vagina. While it is popularly known to be a sterilizing practice, douching actually changes the balance of vaginal flora (which is the good, natural bacteria inside the vagina) and increases rates of harmful vaginal bacteria. This bacterial increase can lead to yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis ..read more

A recent study from researchers at Washington State University has shown success in keeping semen in its gel form to block sperm movement and possibly prevent pregnancy. The methods used in this study may eventually materialize into a non-hormonal female contraception method that could be available for over-the-counter purchase. Past research on mice found that the use of a non-specific protease inhibitor called AEBSF prevented the degradation of the protein of Semenogelin 1. Semenogelin 1 (SEMG1) is a protein that traps semen and prevents movement; therefore, its degradation is necessary for ..read more

The global incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is high, which has adverse effects on sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Given the widespread use of hormonal contraceptives (HC), it is important to consider their potential etiological association with acquisition of STIs. In a systematic review and meta-analysis recently published in Scientific Reports(1), Akter et al. examined associations between HC use (progesterone-only, combined estrogen-progesterone, or unspecified) and prevalence, incidence, or recurrence of STIs, compared with a control group of non-users of HC. A ..read more

In 2021, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that only four out of every ten women use contraception in Nigeria. To help address this sexual and reproductive health disparity (SRH), the World Health Organization (WHO) has coordinated with Nigeria’s Ministry of Health employing a people-centered, and gendered approach to increase the accessibility of SRH services. In particular, WHO has found that self-administration of injectable contraception has already made strides in improving contraceptive uptake regionally. This method has been made available directly within communities thr ..read more