Market Research

Ophelia Venturelli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S. will study the growth kinetics and microbial interactions of a synthetic bacterial community in order to optimize bioreactor design and produce large quantities of mixed cultures at low cost. Mixed microbial populations are used to reconstitute the healthy gut microbiota in infants and children who have suffered malnutrition.

Micro Health Franchise System empowers community midwife worker in providing high quality and cost-effective healthcare services to mother and child in poor communities; at their door steps. Micro Health Franchise system also provides entrepreneurial support to the community midwife workers that lead to the standardization of services, access to financial services and having support by an efficient referral network that can respond to emergencies in a proactive manner. At the core of this solution lies the Telehealth module.

Partners for Development (PFD) will develop an innovative model to ensure access to ante/postnatal and delivery care (ANC/PNC) in 25 underserved villages in northeastern Cambodia: a transportation system of private sector providers in partnership with local government. To increase demand for such transport and make the system financially sustainable, routes will include schools, markets and other popular destinations in addition to health facilities. Costs will be affordable to consumers and prices adequate for providers via set monthly amounts paid to the providers.

Zoe Dibb of Girl Effect in the United Kingdom will train a network of girl researchers to use their custom-built mobile phone research application to find out why 99% of married girls aged 15-19 years old in Northern Nigeria do not use modern contraceptives. This peer-to-peer approach should help encourage young girls to speak more openly about their needs and experiences.

Sarah Rominski of the University of Michigan in the U.S. will conduct longitudinal surveys of women who seek contraception to identify factors associated with satisfaction and particularly with discontinuation, which is common in Ghana. Understanding the reasons women stop using specific contraceptives is important for developing more effective new methods. These reasons may include whether a woman's preference for a specific contraceptive led to them being offered that at the family planning clinic.

Christine Valente of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom will collect data on quantitative beliefs of women in Mozambique on contraceptive use to measure the relative importance of factors such as fear of side effects that inhibit use in order to help implement more effective methods. Many women in Mozambique avoid contraceptives, but the reasons, and importantly how women value those different reasons, remain unclear.

Bvudzai Magadzire of VillageReach in the U.S. will use a mixed methods approach including in person and electronic focus discussion groups with adolescents in Malawi to discover their experiences and opinions of contraceptives to help inform the development of more tailored options. Adolescents as a group face unique challenges when considering contraception, but their specific needs and concerns are mostly unknown.

Fiona Gannon of GOAL in Ireland will use mobile technology to conduct surveys of young people aged between 18 and 20 years old in urban regions of Sierra Leone to find out their opinions on contraceptives in order to promote more widespread use. They will develop the survey and advertise and deliver it directly on Facebook to encourage participation. Mobile phone airtime will be offered via mobile money agents as incentive to complete the survey, which will also ensure participants are the right age and from the right area.

Maria Gallo of Ohio State University in the U.S. will adapt a validated computer-based psychological test known as the Implicit Association Test to measure the true opinions of women in Vietnam on hormonal contraceptives in order to encourage use. Vietnam has one of the highest rates of abortion worldwide. Although hormonal contraceptives are available, it is thought that many women are worried about using them and instead use alternative methods that are generally less effective.

Francis Eremutha of the Women Friendly Initiative in Nigeria will develop and conduct surveys to identify the reasons why Nigerian men prefer certain contraceptives to help design new ones that men are more likely to use. Currently, there are limited male contraceptive options available, and they suffer from being ineffective, undesirable, or irreversible. The surveys will be both field-based and online, and will be designed to capture the opinions of married and unmarried Nigerian men between the ages of 15 and 60 across six states.