With a high burden of cervical cancer in Tanzania, we are advocating for the government’s parliament to prioritize cervical cancer prevention in its annual budget, said Dr. Safina Yuma, a Reproductive Cancer Coordinator at the Ministry of Health, Tanzania, at a recent event hosted by TogetHER for Health on cervical cancer leadership in recognition of cervical cancer awareness month. At least 270,000 women die globally from cervical cancer each year and in Tanzania, it is a leading cause of death, taking the lives of approximately 4,200 women annually. However, cervical cancer is 90 percent preventable with appropriate prevention strategies such as human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations and screenings. Expert leaders from NJIA, a leadership development program for practitioners working in cervical cancer research and prevention, discussed strategies for improving collaboration and leadership within the medical profession to reduce avoidable deaths.

“Most of the people living here are helpless,” said a woman in Jaffna, a district of northern Sri Lanka, nearly ten years after the country’s civil war ended. It was 2017, and I was conducting research with women in two villages in Jaffna. This woman’s sentiment reflected the challenges many in her community are still facing, including the ability to access health services. Through this research, my colleagues and I found that women’s access to healthcare was influenced by both their gender—particularly gender norms and gender roles—and household income. Better understanding of how gender and gender dynamics impact healthcare access will be essential to improving their lives. 

Since its onset, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal mortality has been a question of great concern. And yet, few empirical attempts have been made to capture the potentially profound impact of the pandemic on maternal deaths, particularly in resource-limited settings.

“The current pandemic is straining human resources, disrupting supply chains and service delivery, and negatively impacting service seeking among women and girls in countries across the globe,” said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative. She spoke at a recent event, co-hosted by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), on unintended pregnancies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasing rates of unintended pregnancies during the pandemic have exacerbated the vulnerabilities of many women, said Anneka Knutsson, Chief of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Branch at UNFPA.

As the world struggles to recover from the relentless coronavirus pandemic, the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has become more relevant than ever. UHC means that people have access to community services that promote healthy habits, disease prevention and early detection, quality medical treatment and rehabilitation services without suffering financial hardship.

The Arctic is believed to be a pristine environment, far removed from littered city streets and toxic industrial emissions. I study human pollution and I found it hard to believe that my fellow researchers and I would find so much litter out here. It was even harder to believe that what we uncovered closely resembled the contents of my own closet, over 3,000 kilometers (2,000 miles) away in Toronto.