Working to Advance
Health Equity in Africa

Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference 2023: Examining Healthcare Workers’ Willingness to Promote COVID-19 Vaccines in South Africa

Dr Phiwe Nota presented at the PHASA 2023 conference in Gebeqa (Port Elizabeth, South Africa), which was held from 10 to 13 September 2023. Her presentation focused on examining Healthcare Workers' Willingness to Promote COVID-19 Vaccines in South Africa. The study investigated the readiness of healthcare workers to endorse COVID-19 vaccines, analysing how this willingness correlated with their vaccination behaviour, attitudes, perceived knowledge, and communication skills.

Webinar: Research methods for working with marginalised populations considered ‘hard-to-reach’ or ‘hidden’ to researchers

  ABOUT THE SPEAKER   Dr Liz Fearon is an infectious disease epidemiologist and lecturer at the Institute for Global Health at University College London. She has experience conducting research among minoritized and marginalised populations including sex workers and gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) in East and Southern Africa and in the UK, groups who are heavily affected by HIV. Her experience includes conducting HIV prevention needs assessments, designing and analysing epidemiological surveys, intervention evaluations, ...

Exploring the Influence of Intersectional Stigma on Uptake and Retention in ART Programmes for Selected Young Key Populations in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe

  Across the southern African region, individuals from key populations, particularly young men who have sex with men (MSM) and young transgender women, have become priorities for HIV programming, including those already living with HIV.  The efforts to reach these groups take place in a context where the risks of stigma, discrimination and violence remain acute, based on sexual orientation, gender identity and health status, and where little is know about the influence of these factors on uptake and retention on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) and other h...

Institute for Disease Modelling Conference 2023: The Use of Preference Modelling for Understanding COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

Michael Strauss presented at the Institute for Disease Modelling Conference in Seattle, Washington, which was held from 22 to 24 May 2023. His presentation was about using Preference Modelling to understand COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy. The research that he presented showed that vaccine effectiveness was the strongest driver of preferences, with the number of doses, and the frequency of boosters being significant drivers of choice regarding vaccination. Waiting time and the possibility of a financial incentive for vaccination were also significant in participantsâ€...

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS   Russell Armstrong is a senior research officer at HEARD. Since joining HEARD in 2017, he has led multi-country research projects in the African region on a range of topics, including access to HIV treatment, human rights, young key populations, and organisational development for advocacy for global health. He is also a senior technical consultant with a 20-year track record of supporting human rights and key population programming for governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders across the African continent.   Patrick Ny...

ABOUT THE SPEAKER   Dr David Wilson is a Programme Director in the Health Nutrition and Population practice. He is Team Leader for the COVID-19 Fast Track Facility and the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund. Wilson has worked in approximately 65 countries on all continents, including many fragile and conflict situations in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific. He has a long history of work in HIV and was previously appointed as the World Bank’s Global HIV/AIDS Program Director since 2010.   ABOUT THE WEBINAR &...

ABOUT THE SPEAKER Jane Freedman is Professor at the Université Paris 8 and member of the Centre de Recherches Sociologiques et Politiques de Paris (CRESPPA). Her research focuses on issues related to gender, gender-based violence, migration and sexual and reproductive health and rights. She has published widely on these topics and recent books include Gender-Based Violence in Migration: Interdisciplinary, Feminist and Intersectional Approaches (Springer, 2022); Gender, Equality and Social Justice: Anti Trafficking, Sex Work and Migration Law and Policy in th...

New SRHR Report Just Published

A new reality is now emerging. In many countries on the continent there is evidence that expanding health care coverage does not necessarily result in better health outcomes, even for conditions that can be treated by health care. After several decades of gains in reducing child mortality and deaths from infectious diseases, the residual mortality in sub- Saharan African countries consists of more complex and multimorbid conditions that cannot be addressed simply by expanding access to low-quality health systems. Expansion in coverage must also be accompanied by i...

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Dr Aantjes is a senior research fellow at HEARD with a focus on SRHR and health system strengthening. Carolien has over 25 years of international experience in the field of HIV and public health and has worked, among others, for the Ministry of Health in Namibia as a coordinator of a regional AIDS programme and as a public health nurse for the municipal health services of Amsterdam. She undertook many short-term consultancy assignments in Africa and Asia before moving into the academic space. Since 2015, she has been engaged in HEARD’s inte...

Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Information & Services in Malawi

Professor Gavin George seated to the left of the Malawian Minister of Health, the Hon. Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda along with colleagues from the APHRC and UNESCO. In 2020, researchers from the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at UKZN, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Kenya, and the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi formed a partnership to conduct a problem-based political economy analysis (PB-PEA) of adolescents' access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services in Mal...