reproductive health

Assessing how to build a hospital for mothers and children in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Deciphering why syphilis rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed.

Creating an accurate measure of contraceptive use among Vietnamese women.

Different parts of the world, same shared purpose:  understand the needs and barriers, and find answers that lead to better reproductive and sexual health for individuals and populations.

DARING GREATLY IN AFGHANISTAN 

When asked about why she decided to work in public health, Maria Gallo, PhD, College of Public Health associate professor of epidemiology, thought back to when she was a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village in Nicaragua about 20 years ago. Gallo witnessed that people fell ill with a “mysterious hemorrhagic fever.” Until a team from the Centers for Disease Control arrived and identified the outbreak of leptospirosis, the cause was unknown.

Gallo says that “seeing a field investigation unfold in real life was powerful.”