sexual 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 

Maria Gallo, PhD, associate professor in The Ohio State University College of Public Health’s Division of Epidemiology, received a $120,000 grant from the Society of Family Planning to help educate adult women about contraceptive options in Kingston, Jamaica.

Gallo and the research team hope to debunk myths and confusion surrounding contraceptive safety. Contraceptive methods often go unused because of false concerns about the side effects and health risks associated with them, according to Gallo.

With syphilis rates rising across the country, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has awarded a $1.589 million grant to The Ohio State University faculty members William Miller, MD, MPH, chair of the College of Public Health’s Division of Epidemiology, and Abigail Norris Turner, PhD, associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the College of Medicine and CPH associate professor of epidemiology, to help examine the reasons for the increase.

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.”