Population Council Research that makes a difference

The Population Council is the premier international organization conducting research on HIV and AIDS; reproductive health; and poverty, gender, and youth. The Council has been instrumental in the design of health products, service-delivery programs, and public policies responsive to the needs of people living in the world's poorest countries. The organization's scientists and specialists around the world conduct research on a unique range of themes. Current research topics include:

Sexual and gender-based violence
Sexual and gender-based violence in its various forms is endemic in communities around the world, cutting across class, race, age, religion, and national boundaries. Millions of women suffer every year from sexual and gender-based violence including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Poor, uneducated, and young women are especially vulnerable. These women need not suffer this senseless cruelty. Exposure to gender-based violence and sexual coercion significantly increases girls' and women's chances of early sexual debut, experiencing forced sex, engaging in transactional sex, and nonuse of condoms. Population Council projects are helping to prevent such violence and treat its survivors. Thousands of survivors of abuse have benefited from the Council's projects, and millions more will benefit as we share lessons learned through a wide network of organizations, spreading "best practices" across the developing world.

• Learn more about the Council's efforts to eliminate sexual and gender-based violence

Child marriage
If current trends continue, in the next decade 100 million girls will marry before their childhood has ended. Married girls are at increased risk for shortened education, social isolation, domestic violence, coerced sex, and, in some cases, HIV infection. Early age at marriage and early departure from school are byproducts of the same underlying socioeconomic conditions—poverty, low status, and social customs and beliefs that disempower girls and women. The Population Council and its partners are investigating ways to better girls' lives and reduce child marriage by ensuring safe places for girls to gather with friends and mentors. There they learn the skills they need to assure their rights, their health, and their livelihoods. 

• Learn more about the Council's efforts to reduce child marriage

Female genital mutilation/cutting
The Population Council documents the geographic extent of female genital cutting, the types of cutting that take place, and resulting complications. We are working with Islamic scholars in Kenya to understand the religious beliefs underlying female genital cutting, with the aim of designing, implementing, and evaluating programs to encourage the abandonment of this practice and to improve management of complications associated with it.

• Read more about female genital mutilation/cutting

Safe motherhood
Women living in sub-Saharan Africa are 175 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than women living in developed regions of the world. The Population Council designs and evaluates programs to make pregnancy safer. Recent projects in Ghana and Pakistan have shown that it is possible to significantly reduce maternal deaths in the developing world.

• Learn more about our work on safe motherhood.

Schooling
Education provides substantial health and social benefits. Researchers at the Population Council have found that in addition to socioeconomic factors that cause children to leave school early, gender inequities in some developing-country schools lead children, particularly girls, to drop out. The Council has established pilot scholarship and livelihoods programs designed to help girls stay in school, improve their opportunities, and delay marriage.

• Find out more about the Council's research into schooling.

Reproductive tract infections and sexually transmitted infections
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a major cause of severe illness, infertility, long-term disability, and death. The Population Council is exploring a role for new and existing technologies in preventing, detecting, and treating bacterial STIs. In Bolivia and South Africa, we are evaluating the introduction of a rapid syphilis test into antenatal care services to diagnose maternal syphilis and prevent congenital syphilis. We are also studying the use of the latex diaphragm to reduce bacterial STIs among high-risk populations in the Dominican Republic. Because many STIs are transmitted at the cervix, this technology appears to hold promise in preventing STIs, as the diaphragm covers the cervix and functions as a cervical barrier.

• Read more about RTIs and STIs.

Child mortality
Children born in sub-Saharan Africa are twenty-five times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than children born in the United States. The Population Council has found that home visits by community nurses significantly reduce child mortality in rural Ghana. Now the Ghana Health Service is introducing this program throughout the country.

• Learn more about the Council's efforts to improve the lives and health of infants and children.

HIV and AIDS–related stigma
Fears about family rejection, job loss, and public shunning impede the effectiveness of HIV and AIDS prevention and care efforts. Stigma and discrimination discourage those with HIV from seeking needed services because seeking services may reveal their HIV status. The Population Council is investigating ways of reducing the stigma of HIV infection by providing information in workplaces, schools, and on the media about modes of HIV transmission.

• Learn more about Population Council research and programs on stigma and discrimination.

Children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS
More than 15 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. By 2010, researchers predict that the parents of 25 million children will have died. In addition to the poverty, emotional devastation, and other hardships brought by losing one's parents, orphanhood confers risk for unsafe sexual behaviors. The Population Council develops and evaluates innovative programs to support children affected or orphaned by HIV and AIDS.

• Find out about our work related to orphans and vulnerable children.

Microbicides to prevent HIV transmission
HIV infection for women is driven not only by biological factors, but also by social, cultural, and economic gender inequalities that limit women's ability to protect themselves from infection. The existing strategies for prevention—abstinence, mutual monogamy between HIV-negative partners, condom use, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (because the presence of STIs can facilitate HIV transmission)—are not feasible for many women. Microbicides are being developed as a female-initiated method for reducing male-to-female transmission of HIV, and possibly other STIs, when used during sex. A microbicide would mostly likely be formulated as a vaginal gel, cream, foam, or ring.

• Read more about the Council's work on microbicides.