One GEMMA award recipient spent the summer in Leticia, Colombia, conducting a qualitative study to identify the causes and consequences of unwanted pregnancies. 

Through a series of interviews, the student observed that unwanted pregnancies, along with large family sizes and early ages of sexual initiation, are common in Leticia. The primary explanations for these patterns included economic instability, barriers to access, and personal irresponsibility as well as the role of poverty in encouraging prostitution and abuse. 

Although estimations of the frequency of abortion were significantly varied, the subjects expressed an almost unanimous disapproval of the practice, particularly where it involved formal health care providers.

A GEMMA award recipient worked with Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), an Indian NGO, to research pregnancy-associated deaths in rural Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, India.

The student analyzed data on 319 deaths among women in 86 villages between the years 1988 to 2004. She assessed the distribution of direct and indirect maternal deaths, as well as of suicide and accidental deaths among the study population. She specifically looked at the distribution of deaths overall and by the pregnancy stage during which the death occurred. Staff at SEARCH plan to use the study results to better target future interventions for pregnant women.

One student's summer practicum experience was with Likhaan Center for Women’s Health Inc. in Manila, Philippines. Likhaan provides free reproductive health services, including contraceptives, through five clinics located around metro Manila. 

Th student and her research team conducted in-depth interviews with young people aged 16-20 about their perceptions of and experiences with contraceptive access and use. Sixteen young people, including males and females with and without children and in a relationship or single, were interviewed for the project. The preliminary results were presented to both Likhaan’s management team and Likhaan’s community health workers to inform Likhaan’s efforts to engage with young people and encourage them to seek services.

A team conducted a mixed methods study over ten weeks in Togo on unsafe abortion to:

1. Characterize the burden of maternal morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion
2. Describe the circumstances of unsafe abortions
3. Describe women’s knowledge perspectives on abortion legality
4. Examine medical providers’ knowledge of abortion legality and methods of abortion and post-abortion care

The team identified barriers to access to safe abortion services and assessed knowledge and experiences of abortion access through various lenses. Resulting data revealed that both knowledge of legality of abortion and provider knowledge of abortion and post-abortion care are low.