Maternowska, M. Catherine, PhD, MPH
Director, Social Science & Policy
International Centre for Reproductive Health - Kenya
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine
Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
University of California, San Francisco
Email: maternowska@obgyn.ucsf.edu
Biosketch:
Dr. M. Catherine Maternowska conducts original ethnographic research examining family planning and reproductive rights. Her research includes an examination of the impact of sexually transmitted infections, poor pre-natal care, and an absence of good obstetric services on the health of women living in poverty in urban California, Mexico, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya, where she currently resides. She has served as Principal Investigator and/or Senior Investigator on at least nine projects addressing gender, power, and cultural issues since arriving at UCSF.
Areas of Interest:
- Critical medical anthropology and political economy of fertility
- Caribbean (Haiti), Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, and Kenya
- Applied research in resource-deficient settings
- International health care inequities and critiques of development
- Reproductive rights and advocacy around sexual and gender-based violence
Ongoing Research Projects:
Title: Post-Abortion Care and Improved Maternal Mortality in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya
Key Funder(s): The Goldman Foundation, UN/Better World Foundation
Major Project Goal: As Senior Investigator, Dr. Maternowska works with a team of local physicians, nurses, and health care advocates to incorporate training in post-abortion care as part of comprehensive reproductive health care for poor women living contexts of very high maternal mortality. These projects are also focusing on a post-abortion care advocacy component to ensure that women and their providers understand the gamut of reproductive rights—from the legal and policy level to safe access into quality care post-abortion care sites. Dr. Maternowska is working with WLSA (Women Lawyers of Southern Africa) to build on national advocacy efforts in Zimbabwe, UMATI (the local IPPF affiliate) in Tanzania and the Coast Province General Hospital and ICRH in Kenya.
Title: Unveiling Violence: Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Mombasa
Major Project Goal: Dr. Matenowska works closely with the International Centre for Reproductive Health directing a Social Science and Policy Unit. At the Coast Province General Hospital (CPGH), the second largest public hospital in Kenya and the country’s first public hospital to have a SGBV unit, she is testing interventions to enhance the links between legal, community and survivors outcomes, following sexual abuse and coercion. Records indicate that the majority of survivors (75%) are less than 19 years old, and 60% are less than 15 years old. Clinic efforts include improving RH care through the UCSF programme (see above) and focusing on improved follow-up for survivors medium and long term health care through enhanced support services and rights awareness.
Project Ideas:
Dr. Maternowska is interested in exploring the ways that health-related policies have unintended consequences that harm rather than enhance the public’s health. She uses ethnographic research as a tool for investigating how best to improve policy and ultimately practice. She is keenly interested in developing further studies on the social dynamics of NGO activities in health that assess the interface between international development, national counterparts, and the poor communities they are supposed to serve.
Her field activities, based in Mombasa, Kenya (current residence), Tanzania and Zimbabwe focus on two areas: safe abortion and family planning access, training and advocacy and sexual and gender-based violence, especially among children. Ongoing projects include a SGBV media advocacy project—highlighting the dangers of unsafe abortion; research testing the feasibility of training local Kenyan police to distribute Emergency Contraception to SGBV survivors; and building paralegal reproductive health advocacy teams to empower local, community-based reproductive health activities.
Her second book, a co-edited work with colleagues from the Population Council, explores young girls’ vulnerability in the pathway of HIV/AIDS. Frustrated by the inability of scientific journals to address the diversity of girls’ challenges in the face of HIV/AIDS pandemic, the book will be a participatory publication—one that embraces the voices of girls, girl activists and advocates, and frontline service providers. The goal will be to provide results that reveal the connections—and too often disconnections—between policy, program intention and girls’ lived-experience. Dr. Maternowska believes that conventional wisdom leaves the girls behind. The anthology, due to be published in 2009, will address this crucial information gap, through a critical, thought-provoking collection of essays and experiences from the field.
Contact Information:
M. Catherine Maternowska, PhD, MPH
Director, Social Science & Policy
International Centre for Reproductive Health - Kenya
ICRH land line: +254 41 249 4866
mobile Tanzania/Kenya: +254 723 207 927
mobile Zimbabwe: +263 912 469 812
Courier deliveries:
ICRH-Kenya
Tudor Four Estate
Tom Mboya Avenue
PO Box 91109-80103
Mombasa, KENYA
Updated June 2008