K.G. Santhya
Independent Researcher
drkgsanthya@gmail.com
A demographer specialising in inter-disciplinary research on a variety of health and development issues, with over two decades of experience in leading rigorous quantitative and qualitative research studies. My areas of focus include young people’s education, economic participation, sexual and reproductive health and mental health, gender equality and gender-based violence and modern-day slavery. I have extensive experience in designing, guiding implementation and evaluating gender-transformative programmes to prevent violence against women and girls as well as social and behavioural change interventions to advance adolescent girls’ education, school-to-work transitions and agency and to improve sexual and reproductive health of adolescents. I held various positions at the Population Council during 2000-2022, rising from post-doctoral fellow to programme officer, senior programme officer to Associate and then Senior Associate. I had served as a member of scientific panels of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population and the Executive Council of the Asian Population Association.
KG Santhya, V Groppo et al. 2024. Child Labour and Schooling in India: A Reappraisal, Florence: UNICEF Innocenti
KG Santhya, S Ainul, S Banerjee et al. 2022. Addressing Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children through Prevention and Reintegration Approaches: Lessons from Bangladesh and India, New Delhi: Population Council.
KG Santhya and AJ Francis Zavier. 2022. Long-term impact of exposure to a gender-transformative program among young men: Findings from a longitudinal study in Bihar, India, Journal of Adolescent Health,70(4):634-642
SK Patel, KG Santhya and N Haberland. 2021. What shapes gender attitudes among adolescent girls and boys? Evidence from the UDAYA longitudinal study in India, PLOS ONE, 16(3): e0248766
J Pinchoff, KG Santhya, C White et al. 2020. Gender specific differences in COVID-19 knowledge, behavior and health effects among adolescents and young adults in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India, PLOS ONE, 15(12): e0244053
To expand evidence base to inform strategies to reduce the prevalence of modern-day slavery in India and Bangladesh, with a special focus on overseas labour recruitment, commercial sexual exploitation of women and children and labour exploitations in construction industry and assess effectiveness of interventions to reduce vulnerabilities, address structural drivers and assist survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and labour exploitations towards rehabilitation and reintegration.
Gates Foundation and Packard Foundation; principal investigator
To conduct the first-ever longitudinal study of state-representative samples of adolescents to identify factors that can help them make a healthy, safe and successful transition from adolescence to young adulthood in India.
UNICEF Innocenti; principal investigator
To generate evidence on the prevalence of child labour in India, its drivers and effective strategies to eliminate child labour and to promote research and knowledge uptake by policy makers, researchers and the general public.
Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; principal investigator
To conduct an evaluation of a multi-component, social and behavioural change intervention to reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and intimate partner violence among adolescents in India and assess whether and how the intervention contributed to strengthening adolescent sexual and reproductive health policy, programming and outcomes in India.
Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; principal investigator
To conduct an evaluation of a human-centred intervention to improve adolescent sexual health and education outcomes in India, including assessment of programme performance against the theory of change, process and outcome evaluations and cost-effectiveness.
John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation; principal investigator
To deepen the knowledge base on the maternal and newborn health situation in India and support a new generation of researchers to undertake related research.