NYU Capstone Program Studies Hesperian’s Women’s Health Books

Hesperian was fortunate this year to again be the subject of a New York University Capstone study assessing the impact and value of two of our books, Where Women Have No Doctor and A Book for Midwives , as they are used in the field by people around the world.

The Capstone Program in International Public Policy and Management is a program at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Policy, which focuses students’ attention on real-world situations and issues. Under the direction of Lucille Pilling, Clinical Associate Professor of Public Administration at Wagner, the Capstone team members this year included Eleanor Hartzell, Joanna Hoffman, Dina Mikdadi and Carrie Wood.

Through a world-wide on-line survey of people who either purchased or received a free copy of Where Women Have No Doctor or A Book for Midwives through our Gratis program, the team learned about the book users, looking at where and under what circumstances they live and work, and also evaluated how the books contribute to community knowledge about health.

Team members also traveled to Guatemala, where they visited Hesperian partner organizations ACOTCHI, an association of traditional midwives in the town of Comalapa and CODECOT, a coordinating group of traditional midwives in Xela.  There they observed training sessions, and met in small groups with midwives and students to discuss our books and how they are used.

In general, the team found that our books are well-used as training materials in a variety of circumstances, that they do a good job of reaching out across cultures, and that the simple language and profuse illustrations assist in learning.  Survey respondents described using the books to discuss difficult health issues in their communities—sharing information through health promotion fairs in Cambodia; increasing the comfort level when talking about sex and sexual health with migrant women in Mexico; and starting conversations among Amish women in the US.

In one story from Honduras, an OB/GYN described giving copies of Un libro para parteras (A Book for Midwives in Spanish) to local midwives:

The midwives loved the books. One was illiterate but quickly told me her granddaughter could read and would be the one to read it to her. About a year later, we initiated a project on folic acid. As part of the presentation, the medical student working on the project asked them what they knew about folic acid. The group of midwives, all uneducated in a formal sense, and living in an area lacking in educational resources, proceeded to tell us all about neural tube defects and how folic acid prevents it! I asked them where they got the information. They proudly told me they read it in the midwife book!

At the same time, the Capstone team found that circumstances such as low literacy, a lack of materials translated into local indigenous languages, the villagers’ mistrust of hospitals and a lack of access to prescription medicines impair midwives’ ability to treat people as effectively as they’d like. “Given these impediments to receiving effective health services,” the team concluded, “it is especially significant that publications such as Hesperian’s Where Women Have No Doctor and A Book for Midwives be available and accessible, in the hopes that women will be able not only to survive, but thrive.”

Capstone provided us with a Powerpoint presentation of their project, which you’re welcome to read, and you can also download a pdf of the full report here.

This survey, and the one before it that studied our book Where There Is No Doctor, provide Hesperian with valuable feedback and information, which not only encourages us in our work, but gives us suggestions and ideas on how to improve future editions for even greater effectiveness.

 

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