M. Catherine Maternowska, 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, safe abortion 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 and children 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. From Kenya she is working on safe abortion training and advocacy in three sub-Saharan countries as well as co-directing Kenya’s first Gender Based Violence and Recovery Centre at the Coast Province General Hospital.
Areas of Interest:
- Critical medical anthropology and political economy of fertility
- Political economy of sex workers
- 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
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. Related, she is currently developing a research collaboration studying the political economy of sex workers on the Coast Province.
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
Publications on PubMed
Updated January 2009