Connecting Citizens to Science

In this episode, we hear from Dr Rugema Lawrence from the University of Rwanda and Dr Julian Eaton from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and CBM Global Disability and Inclusion. Together they discuss the links between stigma, discrimination, mental wellbeing and chronic health conditions including Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), how these issues are currently being addressed with communities and the importance of ensuring mental health is part of an essential care package. 

Guest host for this series

Dr. Oluwatosin Adekeye

Assistant Director of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry Ahmadu Bello University Hospital Zaria Kaduna

A social scientist with varied experience in both clinical and research aspects of health among communities in Northern Nigeria. As a Clinical Psychologist, his work has been both on mental and behavioral disorders and the effects of chronic disease on the well-being of patients and caregivers. As a Social Scientist, he just concluded a study that documented the well-being of people with stigmatizing skin diseases and established a care and support group within the community. More recently he is working on developing a well-being tool for parents and children with disability.    

Twitter Links:

@TosinOluw

@Sightsavers

Dr Julian Eaton 

Mental Health Director at CBM Global and Assistant Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Julian Eaton is the Mental Health Director for CBM Global Disability and Inclusion. He works with a team focused on improving access to care and support, and promoting the voice of people with psychosocial disabilities in low and middle income countries. He is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Global Mental Health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he is currently leading a number of research projects looking at strengthening community-based mental health care, reform of public mental health systems in Africa, and Neglected Tropical Diseases. He leads the Mental Health Innovations Network at LSHTM, and is Chair of the Bond International NGO Mental Health Group. Julian trained as a psychiatrist in London where he now works, after living and working in West Africa between 2003 and 2017. 

CBM Community Mental Health homepage: 

https://cbm-global.org/what-we-do/community-mental-health 

Blog on community participation: 

https://cbm-global.org/blog/patient-and-communities-at-the-centre 

SUCCEED homepage: 

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres-projects-groups/succeed 

Twitter:

@julian_eaton 

@CBM_global 

@MHInnovation.net 

@GMentalHealth 

@LSHTM 

@SUCCEEDAfrika

Dr. Lawrence Rugema  

Lecturer, researcher and Consultant University of Rwanda – School of Public Health  

Dr Rugema Lawrence is a public health professional at the University of Rwanda. Most of his research work has focused on mental health and reducing stigma related to mental illness.  Currently he co-leads implementation research on Podoconiosis in Rwanda under NIHR funded Global Research Unit on Neglected Tropical Diseases in collaborator with the Brighton Sussex Medical School. In this particular research, community health workers are critical to in reducing podoconiosis related stigma. Coordinate rapid community health needs assessment through outreach program to inform policy.  

In this week's episode we hear from Detricia Pamba, a patient advocate for people living with diabetes and Prof Kaushik Ramaiya from Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital, Tanzania. Together they paint a vivid picture of what life is like for people living with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in East Africa and what is needed to improve long-term, ‘humanised’ care for patients living with NCDs.

Detricia Pamba

Multi-Media Journalist, Editor and Content Creation Executive, Mwananchi Communications Ltd 

Detricia Pamba is the Content Creation Executive at Mwananchi Communications Ltd, Editor for Mwananchi Scoop and Features writer for The Citizen. Her journalism experience extends on health, business and money management, women and youth, with a mix of arts and entertainment. She is a Type 1 Diabetes patient since 2011 who advocates for the awareness of diabetes in Tanzania through her writings. 

www.linkedin.com/detriciapamba 

www.instagram.com/detriciapamba 

https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/magazines/health-/living-with-type-1-diabetes-detricia-s-story-3875928 

https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/magazines/success/what-you-need-to-know-about-online-privacy-3557866 

@detriciapamba

Prof Kaushik Ramaiya

CEO, Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital, Tanzania 

Professor Ramaiya has been actively involved in research on diabetes for many years and specialised, among other topics, on glucose tolerance and cardiovascular disease risk factors and mainly focused on Indian communities living in Africa. At present, Professor Ramaiya is working with children who have Type 1 diabetes, gestational diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular complications of antiretroviral drugs in HIV/AIDS and Diabetes/TB interaction. As part of the Respond Africa Partnership,, he is working on CD NCD Integration models (MOCCA Study) and will be overseeing  metformin intervention in HIV patients with IGT (META Trial).  

https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-kaushik-ramaiya 

https://inteafrica.org/ 

In this weeks episode we have a conversation with Professor Sayoki Mfinanga, Director and Chief Research Scientist for NIMR Muhimbili Cenre, Honorary Professor of Global Health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Dar es Salaam, and Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha. Professor Sayoki shares key learning about: 

•  engaging with East African governments to address NCD care 
• expert patients who have suggested new ways of working that have challenged professionals to rethink their knowledge base 
• the importance of strengthening primary health care.   

Professor Sayoki Mfinanga

Director and Chief Research Scientist, National Institute of Medical Research, Muhimbili Cenre Tanzania 

Professor Mfinanga is the Director and Chief Research Scientist for NIMR Muhimbili Cenre, Honorary Professor of Global Health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Honorary Lecturer at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Dar es Salaam, and Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania. He is leading several scientific research networks in Africa. He is Deputy Director-of Respond Africa, as well as Deputy Director for Afrique one ASPIRE consortium, and Coordinator of TB node of excellence in East Africa under East Africa Consortium for Clinical Research (EACCR2). 

https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-sayoki-mfinanga  

https://inteafrica.org/ 

In this week's episode, we will be talking about the economic impact of non-communicable diseases or NCDs on east African communities. Guests include Dr. Steven Waititi, a Patient representative on Respond-Africa Partnership and author of “Conquering HIV and AIDS: My personal experience of living with HIV” and Josephine Birungi, a Senior Research Scientist based at Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute (MRC/UVRI) in Entebbe. They discuss: 

• Financial/economic barriers for patients and communities affected by NCDs 
• What having an NCD means for patient finances 
• How integrated care addresses these problems 

Dr Josephine Birungi

Senior Research Scientist, MRC +UVRI& LSHTM Uganda Research Unit 

Dr Josephine Birungi is a Senior Research Scientist based at Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute (MRC/UVRI) in Entebbe. She is currently working on a number of research project within the Respond Africa Partnership, as study lead in Uganda. Projects include 

INTEAFRICA which is evaluating a novel approach of integrated clinical management of HIV-infection, diabetes, and hypertension in Tanzania and Uganda and INTECOMM which is evaluating community based integrated care for people living with HIV, Diabetes and Hypertension. 

https://inteafrica.org/ 

@josephinebirun1 

Dr Steven Watiti

Patient representative on Respond-Africa Partnership

After studying Medicine at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, Dr. Watiti, was a medical officer, Rubaga Hospital, Kampala from 1985-1988. He practiced medicine privately from 1988-2004 at Entebbe Road clinic and JOY Medical Centre Ndeeba, Kampala. From 2004, he has been working at Mildmay Uganda, a leading HIV and AIDS service organisation. An HIV activist and ardent advocate for improved and sustainable health for all, Dr. Watiti believes with hindsight that he acquired HIV between 1985 and 1986 while working as a junior medical officer. In 2000, he began ARVs after contracting tuberculosis, cancer (Kaposi’s sarcoma), and meningitis. In 2006, he started his weekly column on HIV in New Vision, Uganda’s leading daily newspaper. His column appears Mondays under the heading: “Towards zero: with Doctor Watiti”. He has published two books on HIV: “HIV and AIDS: 100 Commonly Asked Questions” and “Conquering HIV and AIDS: My personal experience of living with HIV”. Dr Waititi works with the Respond Africa partnership as an expert patient ensuring that patient needs, views and voices are heard and considered and addressed when designing and implementing research projects. 

https://inteafrica.org/ 

@WatitiStephen 

In this series we are talking about responding to the challenge of non-communicable disease in East Africa together 

In recent decades, rates of non-communicable diseases (NCD), such as diabetes and high blood pressure have risen sharply in sub-Saharan Africa and are now linked to approximately 2 million deaths per year. Countries across the continent are rapidly looking to address this new epidemic, but this is difficult with much of the healthcare system still focused on the treatment of communicable disease, such as HIV. This podcast series will explore many aspects of the problems related to NCDs across sub-Saharan Africa, including how African & European researchers from the RESPOND-Africa group, and healthcare providers and governments in East Africa are working with local communities to better understand the issues related to NCDs and how we can best address their care. In particular, we’re interested in how integrating the care of NCDs with other, currently well treated conditions, like HIV can benefit the patients and local healthcare systems by improving care whilst saving them both time and money. 

In this week’s episode we hear from Dr Flazia Zalwango from the Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute and LSHTM and from Dr Anu Garrib, a consultant in public health medicine working at LSTM in the RESPOND Africa/NIHR Group for the prevention and management of HIV-infection and non-communicable diseases. Our guests discuss: 

• Barriers to engaging community groups across the life cycle, including children, adolescents, and older people to inform prevention, treatment and management of disease conditions like NCDs.  
• How to best engage policy makers in research uptake  
• The problem of NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa and how they are being addressed currently 
• How communities can be involved in addressing the problem of NCDs going forward 
• Why and how can integrated NCD & HIV benefit these communities

Our guest host for this series is Dr Joseph Okebe

Senior Research Associate, LSTM 

My research looks at how primary healthcare services for people living with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, HIV-infection and hypertension can be improved. We recently completed a study in Tanzania and Uganda where we looked at the impact of having all these services together in the same clinic affect patient’s retention in care and control of their health conditions.  

https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-joseph-okebe  

twitter@ jo_okebe 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-okebe-a049399/  

Dr Anu Garrib

Principal research associate, RESPOND-Africa partnership, LSTM

I am a consultant in public health medicine and have been working at LSTM in the RESPOND Africa/NIHR Group for the prevention and management of HIV-infection and non-communicable diseases in Africa since 2017.  

My current research focusses on evaluating strategies for the integrated delivery of HIV and non-communicable disease care, as well as clinical studies on the prevention of diabetes. The study on integration of HIV and NCD services was a feasibility study aimed at determining if an integrated delivery of care for these conditions was acceptable to patients and healthcare workers, and involved extensive engagement with these groups to determine how best to structure the service. Although the clinical trial is a very different kind of study, the continued engagement of patients is critical as we try to determine how best to support patients so that they are able to continue the trial treatment for an extended period. Wider communication within the community and engagement with community leaders about aims of the trial is really important to pre-emptively address concerns that patients and their families may have about participation in a trial such as this. These are ongoing conversations. Care for non-communicable diseases is lifelong and what we learn in trials about supporting patients with adherence to treatment will be valuable, regardless of the outcome of the trial itself.  

Dr Anupam Garrib | LSTM (lstmed.ac.uk) 

Welcome and meet the team | LSTM (lstmed.ac.uk) 

Twitter: @AnuGarrib

Ms Flavia Zalwango

Social Scientist, Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute and LSHTM

Over the last 14 years, I have undertaken research involving women at high risk of HIV and STIs, older adults, adolescents and children, focussing particularly on the impact of HIV on their lives and the management of HIV as a chronic condition. I am currently involved in conducting research on integration of NCD and HIV care at selected clinics in Uganda. I work with a team of researchers who interact directly with the patients, healthcare providers, community leaders, and policy makers in order to generate the evidence at a multi-stakeholder level. We are also working closely with our collaborators from the UK.  

Twitter: @KabuyeFlavia

In this episode we hear from Mary, a TB survivor who shares her inspirational journey from initial sickness to embarking on multiple complex treatments, lengthy isolation, recovery and finally to unending dedication to offer support, positivity and hope for others living with TB. Key learning and lessons in this story for researchers, policy makers and global health planners.

Mary  Mpakibi

Retention Officer and TB expert champion, Kawempe Home Care 

My name is Mpakibi Mary, am 28 years and currently staying in Kyebando, Kawempe Kampala Uganda. I am working at Kawempe Home Care (KHC) as a Retention Officer and TB expert champion. KHC is a community Based Organisation caring for people living with HIV/AIDS, TB cancer and other health related illness. 

I also work as a cab, Community Advisory Board member with Makerere Lung Institute and a member of Uganda Country Advisory Group (UCAG) under the Light TB project bridging the gap between researchers, health facilities and the communities. 

Some of my contribution are attributed to TB case notification through contact tracing and Community sensitization and screening which contribute to the Total TB cases identified at Kawmpe Home Care and other health facilities as shown in reports attached to the links 

https://treattb.org/2019/03/08/mary-mpakibi-from-stream-uganda-tells-her-story/ 

 https://kawempehomecare.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/KHC-Annual-Report-2019-20-Final-1.pdf 

https://twitter.com/Lung_Institute?t=xTdKZpZ7fLqnDdA4FtANIQ&s=08 

https://twitter.com/StopTB?s=08 

https://twitter.com/search?q=USAID%20ON%20TB&t=Xlb1A5FcSzFUGCoyJza87Q&s=08 

On this episode we are delighted to be joined by Dr Brunah Schall, post-doctoral researcher at Fiocruz Minas in Brazil, and Dr Julia Smith, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada. We hear from our speakers about the gendered dynamics of the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on research which has been conducted in Brazil and Canada as part of the multi-country Gender and Covid-19 project.  

We cover topics including:  

• The economic impact of the pandemic on women, who took on a disproportionate amount of unpaid care work and took longer to re-enter the workforce  
• Female health workers’ experiences of racism, misogyny, stigma and violence on the frontline 
• How research from the Gender and Covid-19 project is influencing policy across countries

Dr Brunah Schall

Postdoc, Fiocruz Minas

Brunah is a biologist with a PhD in Sociology from Brazil. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Fiocruz Minas, working on projects on gender and health, especially the international project Gender and Covid-19, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her research focuses on women from vulnerable settings in urban and rural communities in Brazil, highlighting the effects of the pandemic in their livelihoods, food security and overall health with the purpose of connecting them with policy makers.  

https://www.genderandcovid-19.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/PAC00487_Gender-Covid-19-Brazil-food-insecurity-English.pdf 

https://www.genderandcovid-19.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/PAC00519_Gender-Covid-19-Health-Workers-Brazil-1.pdf 

https://www.genderandcovid-19.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/gender-and-race-on-the-frontline.pdf 

https://www.genderandcovid-19.org/resources/the-pandemic-response-plan-in-brazil-must-include-a-critical-perspective-on-gender-and-race-2/ 

https://www.genderandcovid-19.org/editorial/water-is-life-the-struggle-of-quilombola-women-for-access-to-water-in-the-midst-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-brazil/ 

Dr Julia Smith

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

Dr Julia Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. She has a PhD in Social and International Studies from the University of Bradford, where she also completed her Masters of Arts as a Rotary World Peace Fellow. Her research interests centre on gender-based policy analysis of health crises, commercial and political determinants of health, feminist theory and community-based research. She is currently a Principal Investigator on the Gender and COVID-19 Research Project, which is conducting gender-based analysis of the response to COVID-19 in multiple countries and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Canadian Institutes for Health Research. She has also led research on the intersections of health and development, funded by SSHRC, and contributed to the Global Tobacco Control Project at SFU, funded by CIHR and the US National Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Smith has taught classes in both the Faculty of Health Sciences and Department of Political Science at SFU. She is a board member of Women Transforming Cities, volunteers with Mosaic, and has worked with community-based organizations in Canada, Europe and Africa.  

https://www.genderandcovid-19.org/ 

https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/about/people/profiles/julia-smith.html 

Featuring guest speakers Dr Bintu Mansaray, Lead Research Consultant at the Institute of Gender and Children’s Health Research in Sierra Leone, and Dr Tara Tancred, a senior research associate at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, in today’s episode we hear about doing participatory research with highly vulnerable populations, focusing on women who have survived trafficking and the importance of centering their voices in research processes. 

Listen to find out about: 

• How a sense of community and solidarity between survivors can emerge from the participatory research process 
• Engaging with participants to understand safeguarding concerns from their perspective and to collaboratively decide what can be done to make them feel safe 
• The power of participatory methods such as PhotoVoice and community drama for enabling survivors to communicate and share their experiences of trafficking and reintegration 

Dr Bintu Mansaray

Lead Research Consultant, Institute of Gender and Children’s Health Research

Bintu Mansaray is a medical doctor, and a paediatrics public health specialist. She currently works as a social scientist for the Institute of Gender and Children’s Health Research in Sierra Leone whilst completing her PhD at the University of Bristol on the Multisectoral responses to sexual abuse in Africa. Bintu’s research is focused on children’s health and well-being and sex trafficking in Africa. She has published three children’s public health books on COVID-19, Malaria and Type 1 Diabetes to help Africa’s children learn about these illnesses affecting them. Bintu is particularly interested in building bilateral and mutually beneficial relationships with organisations and research institutions to end child slavery and sex trafficking.  

Dr Tara Tancred 

Senior Research Associate, LSTM

Tara Tancred is a social scientist working for the Centre for Capacity Research at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Much of her research centres on improving the quality and patient-centredness of sexual and reproductive healthcare in low-resource settings. To this end, she has extensive experience supporting different participatory research approaches, driving co-researcher-led and contextually appropriate changes to support implementation of evidence-based practice. She has a particular interest in supporting capacity strengthening for implementation research, especially amongst co-researchers.   

https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-tara-tancred  

In this week’s episode we focus on climate change and its impacts on malaria specifically. Our guests Remy Hoek Spaans from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Clinton Nkolokhosa from the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme (MLW) will be discussing the effect of floods in Malawi created by extreme weather events and their impact on malaria. Our guests talk about:  

• partnerships with local sugar producers who help to ensure accurate and timely data for factors such as soil permeability, rainfall, temperatures 
• how climate knowledge combined with local knowledge can help predict patterns of disease transmission and keep track of flooding and its impacts 
• the use of open access tools and humanitarian data to inform decision making and stimulate positive change for vulnerable communities and those affected by climate change 
• plans to develop online intuitive tools to share knowledge and co-develop mitigation strategies to disease risk from climate change 

Remy Hoek Spaans 

PhD candidate, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 

I am currently working on malaria epidemiology in Malawi, with a focus on environmental and climatological drivers. My most recent project, for which field work has just been completed, will look at the impact of flooding on malaria epidemiology.  One of the first noticeable effects of climate change will be an increase in extreme weather events. In March 2019, Cyclone Idai had a devastating impact on the population of southern Malawi. I would like to understand how the spatial distribution of malaria cases has changed in response to the floods in an agricultural landscape. I have access to routinely collected daily health records and satellite imagery to investigate this at a fine scale. With an increase in extreme weather events in the future, it is crucial to learn how this will affect malaria transmission, to build resilient health systems. 

https://rstmh.org/about-us/who-we-are/student-ambassadors/remy-hoek-spaans 

https://twitter.com/remyhs?lang=en 

https://rstmh.org/news-blog/blogs/world-malaria-day-early-career-grant-research-into-malaria 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/remyhoekspaans/?originalSubdomain=nl 

Mr Clinton Nkolokosa 

Masters fellow, Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme (MLW)

Clinton Nkolokosa is a MSc Fellow within the Vector Biology group at Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome, Blantyre Malawi.  Clinton’s current project which is being funded by the Wellcome Trust, is titled Measuring the impact of past, present and future environmental changes on schistosomiasis transmission in southern Malawi. Overall, his work is focuses on advanced spatial analysis in environmental and health, and in the intersection of these research areas. This includes the application of remote sensing in crisis mapping and predictive environmental modelling to uncover snail-schistosome distribution and dry season malaria transmission in a changing climate. His particular focus is using cutting-edge geospatial statistical tools to help improve capacity for prevention, preparedness and response to public health, climate and environmental risks. 

- https://www.mlw.mw/student-profiles/clinton-nkolokosa-pre-msc-intern-junior-researcher/  

- Environmental drivers of malaria transmission in Kasungu (https://rpubs.com/Clinty/786191)   

- Impacts of climate-related disasters such as floods in lower Shire (https://arcg.is/1K5jrX0 and https://nkolokosa.shinyapps.io/FloodMapper/?_ga=2.268629302.615703065.1643593552-679779059.1640993443

In this episode we are joined by Dr Sara Parker, Reader in Development Studies at Liverpool John Moores University and Professor Madhusudan Subedi from the Patan Academy of Health Sciences and the Tribhuvan University in Nepal, who will be talking to us about their work on women’s reproductive health and dignity in Nepal, with a focus on understanding menstrual stigmas and engaging with communities to challenge practices of menstrual exclusion. 

We talk about: 

• How menstrual exclusion impacts the health and wellbeing of women and girls  
• Why it is important to work with men, families and the wider community – as well as women and girls - to change norms and beliefs around menstruation 
• The value of interdisciplinary and creative research approaches for understanding realities at the local level and how this can feed into social transformation 

Dr Sara Parker 

Reader in Development Studies, Liverpool John Moores University Sociology

Sara Parker is Reader in Development Studies in the Sociology Department at Liverpool John Moores University. She has over 30 years of action research experience in Nepal following on from her PhD on non-formal education and women’s participation. She has led a number of research initiatives in Nepal including Higher Education links between the UK, Nepal and Bangladesh with a focus on gender and education.  She is committed to collaborative action research and is currently leading the BA/GCRF funded ‘Dignity Without Danger’ research project exploring menstrual stigma and taboos. This project connects researchers in the UK and Nepal to NGOs and activists in Nepal to deepen understating of the complexities of menstrual discrimination.  The research project also has a strong emphasis on working with local communities and utilises creative means to produce policy recommendations and creative visual outputs that can be used as advocacy tools.  She is an active member of the Menstrual Health and Hygiene Partnership Alliance in Nepal and is co-editing a book on Menstruation in Nepal to be published by Routledge India.  

She has recently been elected as the Chair of the British Nepal Academic Council BNAC and is a committee member of the Britain and Nepal NGO network BRANNGO. She also advises on a number of NGO boards including Elevate Nepal. Sara has co-authored papers and articles as well as written a children’s book focusing on fair trade and Nepal.  

Staff profile LJMU Sara Parker | Liverpool John Moores University (ljmu.ac.uk) 

 DWD Social media @DWDNEpal  

Instagram DwD Nepal (@dignitywithoutdanger) • Instagram photos and videos 

Twitter Dignity Without Danger (@DWDNepal) / Twitter 

Facebook (13) Dignity Without Danger: Menstruation in Nepal | Facebook 

@LJMUSociology 

Qualitative Analysis in Action | Liverpool John Moores University (ljmu.ac.uk) 

Blogs on Menstruation in Nepal  

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/sustainable-development-dignity-without-danger-stigma-taboos-menstrual-exclusion-nepal/ 

https://theconversation.com/nepals-menstrual-huts-what-can-be-done-about-this-practice-of-confining-women-to-cow-sheds-109904 

https://www.elevatenepal.org/blog/menstrual-taboos-nepal/ 

https://www.unialliance.ac.uk/2018/03/08/pressforprogress-on-periods-in-nepal/ 

Prof. Madhusudan Subedi  

University Teacher and Researcher, School of Public Health, Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Nepal  

Central Department of Sociology, Tribhuvan University, Nepal  

Co-Investigator of the BA/GCRF funded project  "Dignity Without Danger: Collaboratively Analysing Stigma and Taboos to Develop Innovative Strategies to Address Menstrual Exclusion in Nepal” that  focuses on the intractable global challenge of promoting women’s right to sexual and reproductive health and dignity. We are working with academics, NGO partners and researchers working in the field of menstrual health on the ground, to build research capacity in Nepal, and co-design the research process by embedding training into the plan of action. 

We have been exploring  the origins, diversity and impacts of local, social, religious and cultural menstrual practices in Nepal which deny women and girls the right to a healthy and dignified menstruation. There is no one all-encompassing single narrative on menstruation across the 125 caste and ethnic groups in Nepal and this project will research experiences across these many ethnic groups by focusing on lived experience in diverse contexts. To challenge menstrual stigma throughout Nepal a deeper understanding of the diverse menstrual practices and their underlying concepts is required. This will support the development of strategies to address the stigma and taboos surrounding menstruation. 

https://twitter.com/DWDNepal 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/madhusudan-subedi-%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%A7%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%82%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%A8-%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%B5%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%80-76426999/?originalSubdomain=np 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wtGcLhkAAAAJ&hl=en