Dr. Jennifer Downs Awarded Templeton Grant for Family-Planning Research

Pictured: Tanzanian co-investigator nurse Ndalloh Paul teaching at an educational seminar

Pictured: Tanzanian co-investigator nurse Ndalloh Paul teaching at an educational seminar

Unmet need for family planning is high in sub-Saharan Africa and particularly so in northwest Tanzania, where over one-third of sexually active women do not desire pregnancy yet use no effective form of contraception. Dr. Jennifer Downs, Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell, was awarded a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to partner with local church leaders to  reduce barriers to family planning uptake in Mwanza, Tanzania.

Evidence from Dr. Downs’s previous work suggests that educating religious leaders is an effective way to disseminate health information to communities in rural Mwanza. In 2017, she published a cluster randomized trial in The Lancet showing increased uptake of male circumcision in villages where church leaders were educated. Preliminary focus group data suggests harnessing the power of religious leaders could also be effective in increasing access to and uptake of family planning.

With this grant, Dr. Downs is conducting a cluster randomized trial in 24 paired villages in rural Tanzania to determine whether a theologically and culturally-informed educational intervention for church leaders increases uptake of family planning and  compare the reported reasons for seeking family planning in intervention and control villages.

Dr. Downs and her study team suggest that implementation of this strategy could drastically increase uptake of family planning in Tanzania and could be adapted and applied to improve uptake of family planning and other health behaviors in other religious parts of the world.

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