Summer 2022 – Page 18 – Gillings Around the globe

Ask Frankie: Designing a One-Stop-Shop for Youth Sex Education and Service Provision

Posted on June 22, 2022June 22, 2022 by

Hi there! I’m now well into my time working with YLabs on a project called Ask Frankie. Time flies when you’re talking about social media, sexual and reproductive health and wellness, and what’s cool with Gen Z folks.

By way of a proper introduction, I’m Zach Witkin (he/him/his). I’m an east coaster through and through and still growing accustomed to the niceties of North Carolinians. I grew up in Massachusetts and did my undergraduate work in Development Studies at Brown University. After undergrad, I moved to Washington, DC to work in program management and strategic partnerships at Population Services International, and briefly served in the Peace Corps in Senegal, before being evacuated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, I’m in the Global Health MPH program at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

This summer, I’m working for YLabs, a global design and research organization working to improve health and economic opportunity for young people aged 10–24 years. YLabs designs, tests, and advocates for youth-driven services, goods, and communications platforms to address the biggest challenges to young people’s health and economic opportunity worldwide. We focus on sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, mental health, and economic inclusion.

With YLabs, I’m working on a project called Ask Frankie. We imagine Ask Frankie as a bilingual (English and Spanish) one-stop-shop app that will support young people to make informed decisions about their sexual health and wellness through tailored digitally-based decision-support tools and seamless connection to the sexual health products and services they need most.

We are currently in the Design Research and Rough Prototyping phase. We are testing rough prototypes and conducting user research on the specific needs of youth in the US, California specifically. Activities in this phase of the project include: seeking ethical approval for youth engagement; stakeholder mapping of potential information and service delivery partners; developing a recruitment strategy and toolkit for co-design and user research; conducting expert interviews; developing rough prototypes for testing; conducting user research with youth, and conducting two-week design sprints to test and build product prototypes. My role focuses on developing the stakeholder map for information and service provision, leading expert interviews and analysis, contributing technical sexual and reproductive health inputs for the rough prototypes, and conducting in-person co-design sessions with youth in the Central Valley of California.

So far, I have spent many hours reaching out to experts requesting a short interview. I’ve spoken with sex educators, public and private school teachers, leaders in city and state departments of public health, online sexual pleasure influencers, community organizers, program managers of youth-serving organizations, and more. It’s taken many follow-ups and random connections, but persistence pays off. I’ve also helped build out technically sound rough prototypes of chatbot conversations and decision trees designed to inform youth of their sexual and reproductive health options.

Looking forward to the rest of my summer with YLabs, I will continue to build technical skills around human centered design (HCD), sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and meaningful youth engagement. I will also continue to learn about the ins and outs of a smaller, newer, growing organization. Lastly, I am excited to spend ten days in California talking with youth about what they want and need out of a digital health product.

Stay tuned to see if the youth I meet in Fresno, CA find my east coast, millennial disposition cool…

-Zach

A little bit of global health in the summertime

Posted on June 22, 2022June 17, 2022 by

Somewhere a person is running to make it to the next terminal, rushing to hand in their ticket to the flight attendant, and breathing a sigh of relief as they settle into their seat with a few minutes to spare before departure. I, on the other hand, in a less chaotic atmosphere, leisurely walk into the kitchen, put the kettle on, and settle in at my desk within a few minutes of a Zoom call.

This summer I will be completing my practicum with Kenan Foundation Asia, an NGO headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. For over 25 years, Kenan Foundation Asia has been working to “inspire students, develop skilled people, and grow strong leaders” in Thailand and Vietnam in areas of economic development, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and social inclusion efforts. They’ve been able to establish multiple partnerships with a variety of organizations such as the Thailand Ministry of Science and Technology, the Thailand Ministry of Education, the Citi Foundation, Boeing, Facebook, USAID, and the US Department of State.

Policy Declaration Ceremony for “Smart Family Planning for Women” project. Photo courtesy of Kenan Foundation Asia

Throughout the duration of the practicum, I will be primarily working on the organization’s newly launched, “Smart Family Planning for Women” project in collaboration with Organon Ltd, and Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health. The project is focused on creating sustainable practices and inclusivity for quality births among women living in Thailand. The study will be engaging with factory workers and migrant workers from Myanmar and Laos in improving overall reproductive health outcomes and advocating for the needs of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services within these communities. As a result of this practicum, I will be developing a literature review regarding family planning and contraceptive technologies resulting in a white paper, and designing data collection strategies and instruments for the research team to utilize. As I work to strengthen my skills in study implementation and program development, I’m also looking forward to furthering my understanding of health inequities among underserved communities in Thailand and the process of establishing sustainable development practices in a global setting.

Despite completing my practicum remotely, I know the impact carries the same weight if I were to have been abroad (although, I am bummed about missing out on all the delicious food!). The next few weeks will be nothing short of an enriching experience.

Until next time!

-Rachel E.

From IMPOWER 022 to INSIGHT: HIV PrEP Still in Focus

Posted on June 21, 2022June 21, 2022 by

Simon at the INSIGHT study site at the Kamwala Health Center in Kamwala, Lusaka, Zambia.

It isn’t sheer happenstance. No. I don’t believe it. Doing my practicum with UNC’s Global Projects Zambia (UNC GPZ) comes to me like a déjà vu. When I was researching UNC, I learned about the summer practicum placements which are compulsory. I knew that I did not want to do my practicum in the US or Europe. It had to be Africa. I started eyeing opportunities that would bring me back to Africa right from the time I got accepted into UNC. I fixed my gaze on Lilongwe and Lusaka. I even started reaching out to professors about possible opportunities in South Africa. Later, other exciting opportunities came up – Uganda and Tanzania. For some reasons, I had to give up all other opportunities and head South of Africa.

Initially, I was going to work with IMPOWER 022 which is a third phase clinical trial project. This project assessed a promising once-monthly Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) drug against HIV as a substitute for the current daily regimen which presents adherence challenges due to the frequency of intake required for efficacy. An ideal PrEP should work like a contraceptive – offering choice–thus allowing for a single jab or swallow to last effectively for a longer period. For some reasons, IMPOWER 022 is currently on hold in the Zambia study site even though it is continuing in other sites.

So, INSIGHT, another study which is just starting off is the one I got involved in. Led by researchers from the University of Washington and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, INSIGHT aims to advance PrEP discovery and delivery for African women. It will be a multi-site study based in eSwatini, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

I will be fortunate to participate in and learn more about the regulatory process since this project is just starting out with preparatory work being done to meet various IRB requirements here in the United States and in Zambia. My second objective is to understand the community engagement process in Zambia which yields high enrollment rates for various studies in the past. I am interested in understanding the strategies adopted and implemented by the Zambian research team in achieving low attrition and high retention of study participants.

Localization and decolonization of Global Health is an area that interests me most. The UNC Global Projects Zambia hub is a classic example of how global health can be decolonized, and I am excited to be part of this network at this juncture of my career and studies.

I am thankful to my faculty advisor Prof. Suzanne Maman, the Director of UNC GPZ, Dr. Margaret Kasaro, and the Vice Chair of Research and Innovation at the UNC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Ben Chi, for the opportunity and mentorship before and at the commencement of my internship. I have learned so many valuable lessons thus far and find this opportunity as one that would open many doors for my public health career in the foreseeable future.

–Simon