When Zoe Mistrale Hendrickson, PhD, associate professor of behavioral and community health sciences, Pitt's School of Public Health, and Sanghamitra Das, PhD, assistant professor of anthropology, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, discovered shared interests in the social forces that shape health and well-being, they saw an opportunity to combine their perspectives.
What began as a conversation evolved into a collaboration between Pitt Public Health and the Department of Anthropology. Supported by an Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) grant from the Research, Ethics and Society Initiative of Pitt Research (RESI), Hendrickson and Das will work with experts and community partners in Nepal and India to examine how reproductive health data are collected, used and governed.
The partnership brings together two disciplines that often examine the same issues from different perspectives. Public health focuses on developing and implementing programs that improve health outcomes, while medical anthropology explores the social, cultural and political factors that influence how those programs are experienced by communities.
"Having different perspectives can not only shed light on the same issue in different ways but can help come up with better solutions," Hendrickson said.
Their work together has been strengthened through Pitt's joint Anthropology PhD/MPH program, which trains students to examine health challenges through both public health and anthropological approaches. Both researchers are involved in the program.
For Hendrickson, whose work in Nepal focuses on child marriage and reproductive health, the project grew from concerns about how communities can benefit from the data collected about them. She has worked with local Nepali governments to strengthen their ability to collect and use data to inform programs aimed at reducing child marriage. That work has also raised important questions about data ownership, consent and how communities benefit from the information gathered about them.
Das's work in India explores related issues through the lens of medical anthropology, including how health data, disease surveillance and reproductive decision-making intersect with gender, power and social inequality. Her research examines how information collected through health systems can shape the lives of women, particularly those from marginalized communities, and how broader social structures influence reproductive choices.
"What is important is to not lose focus of the larger structural elements," Das said. "More often than not, they end up impeding implementation.”
Bringing these perspectives together, she added, can help researchers better understand not only how programs work, but why.
Over the next 18 months, the project will convene a series of workshops involving researchers, legal scholars, bioethicists, nongovernmental organizations, government representatives and community partners. The workshops will begin with a global conversation involving experts from Nepal, India and other regions before turning to country-specific discussions and concluding with a collaborative effort to identify shared lessons and future directions.
A key goal is ensuring that local experts and community partners help shape the conversation. Rather than simply participating in the research, collaborators will help identify priorities and develop the questions that guide the work.
For Hendrickson, that collaborative approach is essential when addressing issues as complex as reproductive health data and governance.
"If you don't understand those structures, you run the risk of unintentionally reinforcing things that are really harmful for people," she said.
The researchers hope the project demonstrates the value of bringing different disciplines together to tackle complex challenges.
"Public health and medical anthropology are really compatible because we understand each other's motivations. We are beginning to develop a language in which we can speak together," Das said.
-Clare Collins
Visit the RESI ELSI Small Grants Program webpage for more information on funding opportunities.