UCT Women’s Health Research receives Grand Challenges Explorations Grant for Groundbreaking Research in Global Health and Development

17 November 2016

The Women’s Health Research Unit in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Associate Professor Jane Harries will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled “A multidimensional approach to inform family planning needs, preferences and behaviours amongst women in South Africa”.

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) supports innovative thinkers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges.  Jane Harries’ project is one of more than 55 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 17 grants announced today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

 

^{A/Prof Jane Harries, Director:  Women's Health Research Unit (WHRU)}

To receive funding, Associate Professor Harries and other Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of six critical global heath and development topic areas.  The foundation will be accepting applications for the next GCE round in February 2017.

In order to understand the specific family planning and contraceptive needs and behaviours of women of reproductive age, we envisage a multisensory approach. This approach will explore and seek to understand women’s day-to-day behaviours and interactions with modern contraceptive technologies from multiple perspectives, including the physical, tactile and sensory experience of the particular contraceptive technology within the individual user’s lifeworld, including her individual, institutional, social, environmental, legal and cultural contexts.

To date, research on women’s perception about modern contraceptives has focused on broader factors such as side effects and the limited method choices that affect contraceptive decision-making.  However, we know much less about how women’s physical and sensory experiences of contraceptive technologies and their day-to-day experiences and micro contexts of contraceptive use affect their perceptions and decision-making around uptake and consistent use. 

Associate Professor Harries and a team of researchers with expertise in social and behavioural research and sexual and reproductive health, will use a multisensory approach to explore the barriers to contraceptive use and uptake amongst women and men in both urban and rural areas of South Africa.

About Grand Challenges Explorations

Grand Challenges Explorations is a US$100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Launched in 2008, over 1228 projects in more than 65 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants.  The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization.  The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required.  Initial grants of US$100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million.

About the Women's Health Research Unit (WHRU)

The Women's Health Research Unit (WHRU) was established in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1996 and is located in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine. The overall aim of the Unit is to improve the health of women through research that informs policy and practice. The Unit acts as a multidisciplinary centre for women's health research focusing on high priority women's health, and gender and health issues. The Unit's main activities include: Research; Health service support; Teaching and Social responsiveness.

Our ultimate goal is to improve the health of the people of South Africa and beyond.