Working to Advance
Health Equity in Africa

Watch this space: Forthcoming Boys and Men Report

A multi-country policy analysis report on the inclusion of men's and boys' SRH needs in national health guidance documents is soon to be released. There has been increased attention to the role of men and boys as partners, fathers, and change agents in advancing SRHR for women and children in East and Southern Africa, and addressing their specific needs through targeted information and services. The report shows that men and boys' SRH needs are currently subsumed under broader health and SRH policies and that only one out of five reviewed countries has a st...

2023 PhD Scholarship Call

HEARD is delighted to announce that applications are now open for our 2023 PhD Scholarship opportunity call.The aim of our PhD programme is to produce expertly qualified graduates to advise or to be part of influential policy-making or programme implementing entities in Africa, and to pursue additional research priorities. The scholarship is intended to support full-time PhD study at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Applications are invited from citizens of all African countries. Female candidates and, in the case of South Africa, those from previously disadvantag...

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Mr Mike Strauss is a Health Economist and Researcher at the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He has been involved in a number of research projects examining the demand for health services using discrete choice experiments to better understand preferences of patients for a range of health services. Professor Gavin George is a Programme Leader at the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, Sou...

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY Dr Sarah Khanakwa is a Ugandan public health manager and health financing expert, with more than 15 years' experience in setting up, managing and providing technical assistance to public health programs, in the fields of communicable diseases, reproductive, maternal, adolescent and child health. Her core areas of expertise include: health financing, health systems strengthening, new business development, strategic project planning, project management and implementation, monitoring & evaluation, research organizational capacity building and k...

PRESENTATION OUTLINE: Health technology assessment (HTA) uses a multidisciplinary approach to support priority-setting for the health benefits package design. The evidence-informed deliberative process (EDP) framework has been used alongside HTA to enhance the legitimacy, transparency, and accountability of priority-setting. The application of EDP and HTA for the sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) benefits package is critical due to the latter’s pluralistic social value decision-making ecosystem. However, this evidence has not been curated in sub-Sah...

PRESENTATION OUTLINE: Over the past decades, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes have improved in most low and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs). However, improvements have been uneven and for a group of poor countries reaching SDG 3.8 of universal health coverage (UHC) will be unattainable without further improvements. Achieving those will require substantial investments, including in strengthening health systems to ensure access to relevant services. While LLMICs will need to adjust priorities to increase domestic resources for SRH, much of the ...

HEARD Researcher Attends WHO Meeting in Geneva

Technical Advisory Group members with WHO representatives Director Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminatha. Professor Gavin George of the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at UKZN participated in the first in-person meeting of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group (the TAG) which focused on Behavioural Insights (BI) and Sciences for Health since the COVID-19 pandemic. George has been a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on BI and Sciences for Health since 2020...

DATE: Wednesday, 21 September 2022 TIME: 10h00 – 11h00 (CET)   Zoom Link: https://ukzn.zoom.us/j/96036180951?pwd=REhVa2prZjhtb3pmMmZCRVFISDlkdz09 Meeting ID: 960 3618 0951 Passcode: 838116   ABOUT THE WEBINAR: Vaccination programmes have, in recent years, come to be understood to be one of the most effective public health interventions against the spread of a wide range of diseases. Vaccines play a vital role in immunising populations but need to be scaled up to high levels of coverage to have the desired public health effects of ...

Factors that are associated with unintended pregnancies among 1.5 and second-generation young refugee women in South Africa

PRESENTER: Dr Marcia Mutambara   DATE: Wednesday, 24 August 2022 TIME: 10h00 – 11h00 (CET)   Zoom link: https://ukzn.zoom.us/j/94209674360?pwd=NVFBbWJ2U3FHalIxUUdUYUpJRWRHQT09 Meeting ID: 942 0967 4360 Passcode: 266838   ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Dr Marcia Mutambara is a Research Fellow at HEARD working in the gender-based violence (GBV) research cluster focusing on issues on migration and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR). She holds a PhD in Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal...

In the Spotlight

Phiwe Nota, a postdoctoral fellow at the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Division (HEARD), has been awarded the Implementation Science Research Grant by the International Paediatric Symposium in Africa (IPHASA). IPHASA has awarded Dr Nota, under the supervision of Professor Gavin George, a 18-month implementation science grant. The IPHASA grant process is a competitive initiative and sought to award three early-career researchers in Africa, the other grant recipients are from Uganda and Kenya. The grant awards were announced at the 24th International AIDS Confer...