Family Planning Research under
the COVID-19 Pandemic:
How is it going and what are we finding? 

 

Tuesday 23 March
15:00 UTC | 8:00 Los Angeles | 11:00 New York 
16:00 France | 18:00 Uganda | 20:30 India

 

Almost a year into the pandemic and its resultant lockdown, we now know more about its impact on family planning practice and research to share findings from experiences on collecting data under the pandemic.

With the goal of providing insight into how efforts to safely manage data collection have been undertaken and whether contraceptive access and utilization have changed under the pandemic, the findings that will be presented will help family planning researchers conduct research in pandemic-affected areas and can facilitate interpretation of research findings related to family planning under pandemic circumstances.

Presentations will feature data on field-based data collection in India (Maharashtra, Bihar and Rajasthan), Nigeria, Uganda and Burkina Faso inclusive of statewide monitoring data and outcome evaluation research data.

English/French Interpretation will be provided.

 

MODERATOR

Priya is a Senior Program Officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the India Country office in the measurement learning and evaluation team, where she leads a portfolio of research on health systems strengthening and family planning with a focus on gender, social norms and equity. Prior to joining the Foundation she was the Director of the Social and Economic Development group for the International Center for Research on Women's (ICRW) Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, India from 2006 to 2016. In her role at ICRW, Dr. Nanda led research, policy and programmatic work on issues related to gender equality and poverty reduction, with a focus on the intersections between economic and health issues. Her expertise includes research, measurement and evaluation of women’s economic empowerment and access to health services, including reproductive and sexual health. She has expertise on programs for adolescent girls’ empowerment and was also the Co-Director of the ODI led research consortium on Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence. Dr. Nanda holds a Ph.D in health economics from the Johns Hopkins University, a MIA from Columbia University and a MA and BA in economics from the University of Delhi.
 

Dr. Priya Nanda
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

 

PANELISTS

Dr Mahapatra is an epidemiologist, physician and public health expert with over two decades of experience in research, measurement, implementations and innovations in epidemiology; managing intervention programs, analyzing research data, developing research leadership and partnership along with training experts on methodology & analyses. He is currently working as the Team Lead, Concurrent Measurement, Learning and Evaluation team of Care India Solutions for Sustainable Development at Bihar. He previously served as the Medical Research Director at Mission Arogya, Kolkata, at the R3G Foundation Inc, Florida, US, as a Staff Research associate in the department of Epidemiology in the Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles and as a Consultant Epidemiologist at the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, ICMR, Kolkata.

Tanmay Mahapatra
- CARE India

'On family planning research data collection as part of an ongoing statewide annual monitoring effort of public health system strengthening in Bihar, India.'

 
Dr Anita Raj is a Tata Chancellor Professor of Society and Health. She is a Professor in both the Departments of Medicine and Education Studies, and the Director of the Center on Gender Equity and Health (GEH). Her research, including both epidemiological and intervention studies, focuses on sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, and gender inequalities including gender-based violence. She has also conducted research on gender disparities in retention and advancement in academic medicine. Dr. Raj has over 200 peer-reviewed publications, and her work has been featured in major media outlets in the US, the UK and in India. She has served as an advisor to UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and was invited to speak at the UN General Assembly on the issue of child marriage. She recently contributed to the Lancet series on Gender Equality and Health, where she analyzed gender inequalities in health systems.
Dr. Mohan Ghule, Senior Researcher , brings over 40+ years of professional experience as a Social Scientist in ICMR (Govt. of India), Deputy Director in MAMTA, Health Institute of Mother and Child Health, New Delhi and presently as a Senior Researcher in Center on Gender Equity and Health, University of California USA, has demonstrated expertise in Sexual & Reproductive Health (SRH) and RMNCH+A. His achievements are backed with a proven track record in designing, developing, implementing and achieving desired results through time-bound, innovative and challenging projects. As a strong leader, his experience includes but is not limited to multi-disciplinary team building, managing, organizing and coordinating, through encouragement, motivation and delegation.

Anita Raj and Mohan Ghule
- Center on Gender Equity and Health and the University of California, San Diego

'Experiences with follow-up data collection from CHARM2, a family planning intervention study involving a two-armed randomized trial in Maharashtra, India.'

 
Dr. Modupe Taiwo is a public health and Social development professional with over 20 years extensive program management experience in different thematic areas such as Adolescent sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS management, Child health and Malaria control, Nutrition , Economic strengthening and livelihood resilience in Africa and the Uk within development and humanitarian contexts. She holds an MSc from the University of Sheffield, UK, MPH and PhD in Public Health form Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Modupe is experienced in managing large funds and donor compliance including grants from USAID, UNWOMEN, DFID,FORD FOUNDATION, Comic Relief, British Council, The World Bank, EU, Global Funds, Global Affairs Canada and recently UCSD. Modupe is experienced in scientific research for evidence based programming and policy. she is a fellow of Consortium of Advance Research and Training in Africa and a published author in national and international journals.

Modupe Taiwo 
- Save the Children

'Assessment of the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent sexual and reproductive health services in northern Nigeria.'

 
Dr Amongin is a Lecturer at Makerere University School of Public Health. She is a reproductive health specialist who majored in Obstetrics/Gynaecology and Public Health. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Amongin is tracking the effects of the pandemic on SRH services provision and access. She is currently the Uganda Principal Investigator on a study to assess the impact of the pandemic on Family Planning services access and use by women in Uganda. This research is part of the broader research activities under Research for Scalable Solutions (R4S). She will be sharing some of the preliminary findings from this work in Uganda.

Dinah Amongin
- Makerere University School of Public Health, Uganda

'Preliminary findings on the impact of the COVID pandemic on FP services access and use by women in Uganda.'

Dr. Anoop Khanna, a public health expert and researcher, currently works as Professor at IIHMR University in Jaipur. Dr. Khanna has a PhD in Sociology. He is an expert in Health Management Information System (HMIS), monitoring & evaluation (M&E), large-scale surveys, database management and analysis. He has carried out more than 30 evaluations and research studies on various health programs and projects in the last two decades, authored many research papers in national and international journals and published two books. He has been involved in carrying out and coordinating projects funded by UNFPA, PLAN International, PATH International, Futures Group International, SIFPSA, European Commission, WHO, UNFPA, USAID, NIDI, Johns Hopkins University-USA, UNICEF and CDC, the Government of India and other state governments like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. He has organized various training programs in the areas of reproductive health, family planning, HMIS, M&E, research methods and design and gender.
Mr. Danish leads the program management and survey implementation in Rajasthan, India. His professional experience and research background includes abortion, family planning, adolescent, maternal and child health and WASH. He has done his master’s in social work from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), and currently pursuing his PhD from IIHMR university. Prior to joining PMA at IIHMR, he has worked as M&E Manager with Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University. He has also worked as a State Coordinator on the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

Anoop Khanna and Danish Ahmad
- PMA Rajasthan

'On large-scale community-based data collection on family planning during the pandemic in Rajasthan, India.'

 
Georges Guiella holds a PhD in demography from the University of Montreal (Canada). He is currently Professor at the Institut Supérieur des Sciences de la Population of the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and also Deputy Director and Head of Academic and Pedagogical Affairs of this institute.

Georges Guiella
- PMA Burkina Faso

'Impact of COVID-19 on reproductive healthcare-seeking among women in Burkina Faso.'