Practice Areas - PSI https://www.psi.org Nonprofit organization making it easier for people in the developing world to lead healthier lives and plan the families they desire by marketing affordable products and services. Wed, 09 Apr 2025 14:15:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://media.psi.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/31002018/cropped-psi-logo-32x32.png Practice Areas - PSI https://www.psi.org 32 32 Health Security and Pandemic Response https://www.psi.org/practice-area/health-security-and-pandemic-response/ Fri, 10 Apr 2020 19:39:16 +0000 https://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=30930 Health Security and Pandemic Response Predicting and Preventing Future Pandemics Effective prevention strategies, early detection and rapid containment are essential to curb disease outbreaks from the start, and require active involvement, coordination, and communication across communities, and among healthcare providers and public health authorities.  We are building on 50+ years of experience leading rapid evidence […]

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Health Security and Pandemic Response

Predicting and Preventing
Future Pandemics

Effective prevention strategies, early detection and rapid containment are essential to curb disease outbreaks from the start, and require active involvement, coordination, and communication across communities, and among healthcare providers and public health authorities. 

We are building on 50+ years of experience leading rapid evidence generation, social and behavior change interventions, private and public sector engagement, and digital solutions to design effective, tailored approaches to improving health security and preparing for future pandemics.

Strengthening HEALTH SYSTEMS
To improve HEALTH SECURITY

We are advancing global health security through a continuum of action framework in multiple countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America– and we are just getting started.

Strong government and community engagement are the foundation of effective health security. Our longstanding partnerships with national governments help drive political will and ensure disease surveillance and emergency response remain national priorities. By working closely with Ministries of Health, we integrate health security into national health plans, ensuring rapid and coordinated responses to emerging threats.

We leverage our expertise in infectious disease control and digital health to enhance disease surveillance, integrate existing surveillance and data systems, and align with global data standards. By digitizing reporting mechanisms – for example, using chatbots and social media platforms – we strengthen connections between communities and health systems, improving early detection and response. Learn more here.

We equip provincial and district health offices with the infrastructure, digital tools, and trained personnel needed to coordinate effective emergency responses. Through social behavior change communication strategies, we help counter misinformation and strengthen frontline health worker preparedness. By providing technical support, upgrading health systems, and developing emergency response protocols, we ensure that governments can act swiftly and effectively in crisis situations.

Outbreaks all have one thing in common: they start and end in the community. We work alongside central, provincial, and district health authorities to strengthen local capacity for disease surveillance, investigation, and response. Engaging community members from the onset fosters trust, improves early outbreak detection, and ensures a more resilient response to public health threats.

We support governments in integrating health security systems into routine health information management, making them more reliable and responsive. By leveraging AI to predict disease outbreaks and strengthening health systems to withstand climate change impacts, we ensure long-term sustainability. Investments made today fortify global health security for future generations. 

We take a data-driven, iterative approach to continuously refine health security interventions. Regular assessments help identify strengths, address gaps, and embed learnings into national and subnational emergency response plans. By prioritizing evidence-based improvements, we ensure that health systems are continually strengthened and adapted to meet evolving challenges.

GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY
CONTINUUM OF ACTION

4 Ways We’re
Strengthening Health Security

01

The Frontline of Epidemic Preparedness and Response 

02

Misinformation and Vaccine Hesitancy 

03

Scaling Digital Solutions for Disease Surveillance 

04

Building Resilient, Consumer-Powered Health Systems

Join us

Let’s partner to strengthen health security and prevent future pandemics. 

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Updates

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HIV/Tuberculosis https://www.psi.org/practice-area/hiv-tb/ Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:52:27 +0000 http://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=25113 HIV, Tuberculosis, and Viral Hepatitis Emerging public health threats, along with political, economic, and humanitarian crises, severely impacted the global response to HIV and other infectious diseases, reversing years of slow but steady progress. If current trends persist, 1.2 million people will be newly infected with HIV in 2025 — three times more than the […]

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HIV, Tuberculosis, and Viral Hepatitis

Emerging public health threats, along with political, economic, and humanitarian crises, severely impacted the global response to HIV and other infectious diseases, reversing years of slow but steady progress.

If current trends persist, 1.2 million people will be newly infected with HIV in 2025 — three times more than the global targets. In 2023, there were an estimated 10.8 million new TB cases globally, with 1.25 million deaths. TB remains a leading cause of death among people living with HIV. Viral hepatitis B and C affect an estimated 354 million people and account for nearly 1.5 million deaths worldwide. Yet only a fraction of those affected are aware of their status, highlighting a significant gap in testing and linkage to treatment and care services. Unchecked transmission weakens health systems, increasing the risk of other infectious disease outbreaks that could spread globally.

In over 40 countries, PSI partners with governments, the private sector, communities, and other key stakeholders to bring testing, prevention, treatment, and care closer to people living with or most affected by HIV, TB, and viral hepatitis — particularly groups like pregnant women, children, and other vulnerable populations.

Our Approach to
TRANSFORMING HEALTH

We support health systems to adapt and respond to emerging challenges and the evolving needs of their clients and patients. We use consumer and market insights to inform policy decisions, generate demand, and address capacity gaps at each level of the health system. Through our commitment to evidence-based decision-making, we are setting the stage for transformative changes in HIV, TB and hepatitis prevention and treatment policies, both nationally and globally.

We are scaling newer, cheaper, and more accurate diagnostic tools to make it easy for anyone, no matter where or who they are, to get tested. We drive the development of products, like self-testing for HIV, Hepatitis C, COVID-19, and STIs, that enable people to own their health. We specialize in understanding the challenges of new products and building effective coalitions to systematically increase their uptake.

We use a mix of community health, pharmacy services, and decentralized public and private facility-based channels to offer the latest in treatment and prevention interventions, like differentiated delivery of antiretroviral therapy (ART), and biomedical prevention services.

From custom apps and chatbots, to tele-health and e-commerce platforms, PSI’s digital innovations are bridging geographical and social obstacles to expand and facilitate remote access to essential information, testing, treatment, and support services. We use digital solutions to streamline data collection and reporting at the community and facility level. At the national level, we support data management and make surveillance systems more agile to improve responsiveness to outbreaks.

We are learning from clients and providers’ experiences to make our services more appealing, convenient, and stigma-free. Our research generates insights into our populations of interest, and we use approaches like human-centered design and behavior economics to reach and retain target populations with testing, treatment, and preventative services. We actively engage with communities and civil society and, together, tackle access barriers for the rollout of lifesaving, affordable products and interventions.

Our approach extends beyond HIV and co-infections. We incorporate valuable insights and lessons from the fight against HIV, TB and hepatitis to improve prevention, care and treatment for other health issues and strengthen the ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks, including the ongoing challenges posed by COVID-19. Through this integrated approach, we ensure that primary healthcare services are accessible and tailored to meet the diverse needs of the communities we serve.

FEATURED
PROJECTS

INTEGRATE

Funder: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

VMMC

STAR SELF TESTING

Funder: Unitaid,
and FIND

HIV, COVID-19, HEPATITIS C

THE MPILO PROJECT

Funder: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

HIV/AIDS

A stronger health system
clears the way for
consumers

As PSI, we take risks to implement and reform market interventions, addressing deeply rooted barriers with technical expertise and tactical experience to increase access to critical health products and services. However, for market reform to evolve into a robust and person-centered health product and service delivery response, we need normative guidance and multi-sectoral collaboration with governments, drug agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, healthcare providers, and communities.

Our
Experts

Dr. Karin Hatzold

Director, HIV and Tuberculosis and Project Director, STAR

US/South Africa

Shawn Malone

Project Director, HIV/AIDS (Gates Project), South Africa

South Africa

Chanda Maleku Amatya

Global Deputy Director, Finance and Operations, HIV/TB/Hepatitis

US

Dr. Brian Maponga

Project Director, HIV & SRH Biomedical Interventions

Zimbabwe

Lungile Zakwe

Project Director

South Africa

Tasha Vernon

Technical Advisor II, HIV/TB/Hepatitis

US

Felix Tembo

Technical Advisor II, Private Sector Engagement

Zimbabwe

Taurai Kambeu

Senior Monitoring Advisor

Zimbabwe

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Malaria https://www.psi.org/practice-area/malaria/ Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:46:08 +0000 http://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=25109 Malaria Malaria interventions are a critical entry point for strengthening health systems through public, private, and community networks at each level. We work closely with governments and other key stakeholders and strategic partners to transform health systems by tackling the root causes preventing people and their communities from achieving and maintaining good, quality, and affordable […]

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Malaria

Malaria interventions are a critical entry point for strengthening health systems through public, private, and community networks at each level.

We work closely with governments and other key stakeholders and strategic partners to transform health systems by tackling the root causes preventing people and their communities from achieving and maintaining good, quality, and affordable health.

PSI supports national malaria control and elimination programs (NMPs) across 25 countries to deliver next-generation malaria vector control and innovative chemoprevention interventions, move quality malaria care closer to patients and caregivers, and create response-driven surveillance systems.

Our Approach
to Transforming Health

We extend coverage of quality, accessible and affordable malaria care to communities, including cost-effective solutions like perennial malaria chemoprevention to prevent malaria in young children in areas of high transmission during their most vulnerable years.

We engage health system actors, patients, and caregivers at each level to gather data and generate valuable insights into the availability of, need for, and use of essential health services systematically and continuously.

We develop digital tools that improve service delivery – from bed net distribution and chemoprevention campaigns to channel-appropriate trainings for health worker capacity, and apps that facilitate access to information and provider decision making for malaria case management.

We support government-led public health emergency operations centers (PHEOCs) to improve their capacity to monitor, prepare for, and respond to disease outbreaks and other emerging health challenges that could strain health systems and spill over to other regions.

Expanding Malaria
Prevention and Vaccination

Explore how the Unitaid-funded, PSI led Plus Project supports the use of Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention (PMC) alongside routine vaccinations and vitamin A supplementation visits for children under two. 

Working alongside Ministries of Health in four implementing countries, the Unitaid Plus Project has supported the administration of more than 1 million doses of pediatric SP through PMC and is working with each government to introduce the malaria vaccine into the existing health system.

Strengthening Health Systems
Through Effective, Innovative Malaria control & Elimination

PSI views our malaria work as an important foundation to overall health system investment – that is, to permanently transform health systems to provide quality healthcare to those that need it most by strengthening public, private, and community networks at each level of the health syste

Learn more about our health system strengthening approach to malaria control and elimination in our latest HSS brief, below.

Our
Experts

Christopher Lourenço, MPH

Director, Malaria & Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)

US

Charlotte Eddis, MS

Project Director, The Plus Project Malaria Department, International PSI

US

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Water, Sanitation and Hygiene https://www.psi.org/practice-area/wash/ Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:37:12 +0000 http://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=25102 Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Two billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion people do not have access to safely managed sanitation. Additionally, 2 billion people do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap. Every day, more than 700 children die from water-related illnesses. Access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene […]

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Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

Two billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion people do not have access to safely managed sanitation. Additionally, 2 billion people do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap. Every day, more than 700 children die from water-related illnesses.

Access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene services (WASH) is crucial for public health, impacting child development, educational outcomes, and economic productivity. By ensuring equitable access to services, WASH interventions improve community resilience against diseases and environmental challenges.

PSI collaborates with local communities, governments, and private sector partners to create sustainable WASH market systems, ensuring accessible, affordable, and appealing solutions, allowing people to live happier, healthier lives.

Our Approach
to Transforming Health

We support the private sector to lead market growth by strengthening the capacity and coordination of supply chain actors to develop viable businesses in the sanitation sector. This enables them to ensure the supply and marketing of desirable, affordable, and resilient WASH products and services, such as toilets and pit emptying services, beyond the life of any program. 

We create consumer demand by designing interventions based on consumer insights. We support market actors to offer more affordable and desirable services that are convenient to access for consumers, engage the public sector to more use evidence-based approaches for behavior change, and work through local champions and leaders to influence social norms. 

We strengthen the enabling environment for equitable WASH markets at the national and local level. This includes influencing the financial and regulatory enabling environment for WASH market players to perform successfully. We engage and support governments to shift policy and more effectively direct resources to catalyze private investment and ensure access to the most vulnerable populations while strengthening data collection and  monitoring systems.

We facilitate access to consumer and business finance by working through existing financial institutions, such as banks, microfinance institutions, and communitylevel savings groups to offer new financial products that are designed for the WASH sector and more likely to be accessed by small-scale enterprises and low-income consumers. 

We commit to institutionalizing our approaches within local organizations by working through local training institutions, government processes and programs, and community-based organizations. We work alongside local entities and build their capacity to plan, budget for, implement, and monitor market-based WASH programming. 

Creating Sustainable
Sanitation Solutions

PSI works to build and strengthen systems that support sanitation markets’ long-term growth and resilience. Some of the ways PSI is creating sustainable sanitation solutions for people include strengthening the private sector, generating demand, engaging government actors, and introducing improved sanitation products into the market.

Explore how we are putting these strategies into practice.

30 Million Thriving
CLosing the gap in
access to sanitation

For more than a decade, PSI has worked to solve one of the world’s intractable problems – poor access to hygienic sanitation. Our goal is to develop 10 inclusive sanitation markets, where 30 million people will have access to healthier, safer, more productive lives by strengthening market systems that enable access for all. To deliver on our vision, partnerships are critical to drive lasting change.  

Join us on this exciting, yet critical journey to close the gap in access to safe, clean and affordable sanitation.  

Our
Experts

Jennifer Marcy

Director, WASH

US

Joel Ochieng

Technical Advisor, WASH

US

John Sauer

Deputy Director, WASH

US

Sydney Sapper

Technical Advisor, WASH

US

RESOURCES

November 10, 2022

After the Flush: Demonstrating a Sustainable Approach to Fecal Sludge Management

September 21, 2022

USAID Transform WASH Resources

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Updates

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Sexual & Reproductive Health https://www.psi.org/practice-area/womens-health/ Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:29:50 +0000 http://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=25098 WOMEN’S HEALTH Investing in women and adolescent girls for our common future has never been more important. And yet health systems are not always able to support their comprehensive reproductive and maternal health needs.  We’re building on 55+ years of experience and partnership to advance women’s health – from voluntary family planning to critical, but […]

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WOMEN’S HEALTH

Investing in women and adolescent girls for our common future has never been more important. And yet health systems are not always able to support their comprehensive reproductive and maternal health needs. 

We’re building on 55+ years of experience and partnership to advance women’s health – from voluntary family planning to critical, but often neglected components of reproductive and maternal healthcare. 

Along with our partners, we instill policies and practices to safeguard access to quality, person-centered reproductive and maternal healthcare even in the event of climate-related shocks and other disruptions. This work is grounded in strategic partnerships with governments, the private sector, communities, individuals, and other key stakeholders to innovate and scale person-centered solutions to meet the diverse needs of people, wherever and whenever they need care. 

Our Approach
TO REPRODUCTIVE
AND MATERNAL HEALTH

We believe that meaningful healthcare starts with putting people at the center—providing individuals with information, options, tools, and the support they need to take charge of their well-being. By expanding access to innovative self-care solutions, strengthening health systems and markets, equipping the providers who deliver care, and leveraging technology to break down barriers, we help communities and individuals lead the way in shaping their own health and futures. 

We take a holistic approach to quality of care designed around principles of respect and tailored support that leads to a positive experience and improved health outcomes. Our teams are locally rooted, giving us a deep understanding of how individual and societal behaviors influence healthcare decisions and experience of care, applying these insights to inform policy, generate demand, and address capacity gaps at each level of the health system. Through our commitment to evidence-based decision-making, we are setting the stage for transformative changes in person-centered reproductive and maternal healthcare.

Self-care interventions reduce stress on health systems. We specialize in understanding the challenges of self-care solutions and build coalitions to systematically increase their acceptance and uptake. Our strategic partnerships with governments and stakeholders help to operationalize self-care frameworks that complement health systems, scale self-care methods like self-inject contraception to improve people’s health autonomy, and support self-care as an avenue to help achieve Universal Health Coverage.     

Through public-private partnerships and government collaboration, we catalyze scale in health workforce delivery of carePSI strengthen the health workforce through the development of protocols, training design and delivery, quality-of-care and supportive supervision approaches, and digital tools that enhance providers’ skills, equipping them to deliver client-centered care across diverse healthcare settings. We strengthen provider capacity to deliver healthcare for women and adolescent girls, addressing menstruation, cervical cancer, reproductive and post-partum health, and linkages to child healthcare 

This is an era of incredible innovation – with new contraceptive technologies, women’s health diagnostics, telehealth, and e-commerce platforms in the pipeline. We are taking these innovations from idea to market by leveraging our partnerships with governments, donors, commercial partners, and research and development organizations. Catalyzing change is a challenge, but when we embrace digital technology and health innovation to strengthen every level of the health system, we can connect people with the quality care they want and need. 

We partner with individuals, communities, civil society and public and private sector actors to forge a path towards locally owned and sustainable health solutions. Client and provider insights make our services more respectful, responsive and stigma-free and our technical experts use human-centered design principles to build new approaches to healthcare alongside consumers from around the world. For example, our flagship youth program is designed, implemented, and scaled by adolescent girls, for adolescent girls, to plan their futures and achieve their goals.

BUILDING STRONGER REPRODUCTIVE AND MATERNAL HEALTH SYSTEMS
relies on strategic partnerships

At PSI, we embrace change to implement and reform market interventions, addressing deeply rooted barriers with technical expertise and tactical experience to increase access to critical health products and services. However, for markets to evolve into a robust and person-centered health product and service delivery response, we seek multi-sectoral collaboration with governments, drug agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, healthcare providers, and communities.  

Our
Experts

Abigail Winskell, BS

Project Director, DISC & Nexus

Alison Malmqvist

Vice President, Global Fundraising & Communications

US

Andrea Fearneyhough, B.A.

Director, SRH Projects

US

Dr. Claire Rothschild

Sr. Research and Learning Advisor, Sexual and Reproductive Health

Dr. Milly Kaggwa

Senior Clinical Advisor for Africa

Fifi Ogbondeminu

A360 Director

Jennifer Pope

Vice President, Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and TB

US

Pierre Moon

Project Director II, MPHD

US

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Updates

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Adolescents & Youth https://www.psi.org/practice-area/adolescents-youth/ Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:26:23 +0000 http://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=25095 Adolescents & Youth Featured Story Watch Now To reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030—and to ignite a world in which every young person can access modern contraception when and how they say they want—we need to get youth-powered. Learn how PSI is applying that approach through our flagship adolescent reproductive health and rights project, […]

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Adolescents & Youth

9jaGirls-7

Featured Story

Watch Now

To reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030—and to ignite a world in which every young person can access modern contraception when and how they say they want—we need to get youth-powered.

Learn how PSI is applying that approach through our flagship adolescent reproductive health and rights project, Adolescents 360 (A360).

Overview

Globally, two in five people are under the age of 25, and nearly half of this segment lives in sub-Saharan Africa. Young people have the potential to catalyze development outcomes in their countries and around the world, including economic and social progress, but only when governments and organizations prioritize inclusion and holistic youth development. When we build positive assets, protective factors and resiliency in young people, and reduce their access barriers to information and services, they will have the power to help us unlock the challenges ahead.

However, many young people still experience interlocked forms of discrimination, limited political inclusion, high levels of poverty and limited access to health systems, educational opportunities and decent jobs. In sexual and reproductive health, a persistent unmet need for reproductive health services exists among young people directly contributing to cycles of poverty based on economic and social exclusion.

We believe that one reason young people have unequal representation, care and support is due to a lack of inclusion and shared power, particularly in the design, implementation and evaluation of services created for their health and well-being. We need their voice to be a part of the solutions that serve them through meaningful youth engagement, participation and leadership.  Young people have the right to be included, and we have the responsibility to build their capacity for greater impact. To do so, we are honoring young girls and boys as the experts of their own lived experiences and elevating them as co-decision makers for the health solutions that serve them. We are prioritizing their voice, choice and agency in our work because if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—and nations are to achieve a demographic dividend that will propel their economies—the health and well-being of young people will be critical to their meaningful contribution and leadership to solve these challenges. By prioritizing our youngest consumers we can not only build lifetime contraceptive users but create healthy, educated and economically productive adults that can lift their families, communities and countries out of poverty.

Consent was obtained for all photos of young people that appear on this page. 

Our Commitments to Adolescents & Youth

By 2030, PSI pledges to identify, train and deploy a corps of 500 young people from around the world with the skills to co-design and implement adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights programs alongside technical experts. These youth fellows will be employed as practitioners in programs within and beyond PSI, working as researchers, analysts, advocates and community-level champions who can counsel teams on how to apply meaningful youth engagement and design youth-powered programs. And, through inter-generational and peer-to-peer mentorship, they will be supported to develop the confidence and skills needed to successfully influence and deliver public health programming.

Read more.

Human Centered Design (HCD) is one approach to design-thinking, and is often paired with other health systems approaches to develop deep and nuanced understanding about what matters to people, on a deep, emotional level. There’s power in working with young people for the solutions that serve them. But that partnership must include protocols to ensure we protect young people’s integrity, dignity and wellbeing throughout our work.

That’s why PSI alongside A360 and the HCD Exchange—a representative group of implementers, designers and funders—developed the Commitment to Ethics in Youth-Powered Program Design to honor and uphold ethical principles when conducting HCD with adolescents and young people. Three pillars ground the Commitment’s principles: respect; justice; and do no harm to the young people we work with and for.

Learn more.

Working in partnership with young people unleashes breakthroughs—but without proper guardrails in place, we can endanger young people’s safety and well-being. Alongside the members of the HCD Exchange, we launched the Commitment to Ethics in Youth-Powered Design at the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in November 2018 to formalize principles for how we, as a community, can ensure that we respect, balance power with and do no harm to the young people we work with and for. The Commitment, in addition to the World Health Organization-led Global Consensus Statement on Meaningful Adolescent and Youth Engagement also signed during ICFP, reflects how we’re addressing the unique vulnerabilities that arise when working alongside young people, both during implementation and well after we leave.
We successfully met and surpassed our FP2020 pledge two years early. In the process, we exposed gaps in how we were assessing who was coming through the service delivery door. We did not have a long history of age disaggregated service delivery. We needed to know exactly who we were serving if our goal was to impact unmet need and reduce unintended adolescent pregnancies.
 
A formula was created to help us conservatively estimate our numbers reached against the data collected by USAID’s Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program while we enhanced our focus on age disaggregated data. We have since devised new formulas to help country offices better understand contraceptive use/need among youth from a wider lens. New youth projection methodologies have been created to better project country-specific short-term goals and Data2Action frameworks have been designed to track success.

How we
work

01
Asset 17

Consumer
Led

02
Asset 26

Market Development

03

Program
Design

04
Asset 9

Social
Business

The Eight Pillars of our Work with Adolescents & Youth

01

We’re shifting from a youth-focused to a youth-powered approach.

Pillar-1-1
02

We take a holistic view on how to reach, and serve PSI’s youngest consumers.

Pillar-2-1
03

We speak to young people’s self-defined experiences & internal motivations.

Pillar-3-1
04

We see culture as an asset to transform and catalyze enabling environments.

Pillar-4
05

We reframe the narrative around contraception.

Pillar-5
06

We keep young people’s needs and concerns at the forefront of our work.

Pillar-6
07

We’re committed to meaningful and ethical youth engagement.

Pillar-7
08

We elevate youth voices and build youth skills for health design.

Pillar-8

Our Approaches

Adolescents 360 (A360) joined its young designers with a diverse consortium of experts to collect, interpret and analyze data—from formative research through implementation and beyond. Young designers support A360 to step deep into girls’ lives, to understand what matters to them today—and lend new and fresh insight from a youth lens. The result was interventions that girls perceive as resonant and relevant to their lives.

Youth self-segment, often in ways far more nuanced than the reproductive life stage approach often found in sexual and reproductive health programming. PSI’s youth programs aim to align the way young people tell us they want to be segmented, considering their own perception of the life trajectories available to them from childhood to adulthood—and the milestones along the way. 

We’ve learned that young people have many joys and aspirations over the course of their lives. But adverse socio-economic and gender realities bring them to narrow this list to aspirations that feel achievable—and for girls, motherhood is often at the top of the list. In this case, other dreams may be perceived as competing with this chief achievable joy. We position contraception in service of both achievable and aspirational goals, both as a way to protect fertility and attain financial stability.

Engaging powerful brands can help to build trust and credibility. Trusted brands communicate that “you are worthy” and can help motivate youth to not only seek care but continue returning to it. We understand and tap into compelling concepts that already have their own social momentum. This eases the pathway for young people and their communities to get behind our messages and programming.

We find and leverage youth-defined and identified safe spaces, whether they’re physical or emotional, both online and offline. These spaces bring providers and staff together with youth during counseling, which builds empathy so that providers see young people as equals, not just as clients. Youth contributions during our project implementations have increased empathy with and between providers, while data collection and analysis with girls has helped to refine the user experience using adaptive implementation techniques.

Our
Impact

By December 2018, we reached over 14 million young people under the age of 25 with modern contraception.

We reached

two years ahead of schedule

We work with

630+

young designers working in our youth programs

We power

71

youth activities across 21 countries

Featured Projects

Adolescents 360

Chicas en Conexión

Project Ignite

Jovenes 3.0: Innovative Approaches to Reducing Unmet Need for Family Planning in Latin America and the Caribbean

Support for International Family Planning Organizations (SIFPO2)

Transform/PHARE

Our
Technical Experts

Metsehate Ayenekulu

Project Director, RISE

Fifi Ogbondeminu

A360 Director

Edwin Mtei

Project Director, A360 Ethiopia

Our
Programmatic Experts

Jennifer Pope

Vice President, Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and TB

US

Olivier LeTouzé

Director, Project Ignite & Senior Technical Advisor, Market Research

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Digital Health https://www.psi.org/practice-area/digital-health/ Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:20:39 +0000 http://psi2030.wpengine.com/?post_type=practice_area&p=25092 Digital Health Overview DIGITAL HEALTH MATTERS NOW MORE SO THAN EVER Over the next decade, PSI aims to reimagine healthcare worldwide by placing our consumer at the center, and, whenever possible, bringing quality care closer to our consumer. We live in a rapidly changing world; advancements in mobile technology access coupled with increased connectivity in […]

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Digital Health

Overview

DIGITAL HEALTH MATTERS NOW MORE SO THAN EVER

Over the next decade, PSI aims to reimagine healthcare worldwide by placing our consumer at the center, and, whenever possible, bringing quality care closer to our consumer. We live in a rapidly changing world; advancements in mobile technology access coupled with increased connectivity in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) presents an unprecedented opportunity to make healthcare more accessible by changing the way we engage with consumers. In addition, COVID-19 has seriously strained already fragile healthcare systems in many of these countries. Limitations in physical movement and social interaction have further accelerated the need for digital health solutions targeted at both consumers and the health workforce.

PSI’S VISION FOR DIGITAL HEALTH

PSI’s Digital Health vision is to improve consumer health and well-being by using digital technologies to increase access and personalize delivery of quality information, products and services throughout their life course. The vision will be delivered through the Digital Strategy Framework highlighted below, aligned to WHO’s Classification of Digital Health Interventions.

DIGITAL STRATEGY FRAMEWORK

In order to achieve the Digital Strategy vision, PSI focuses on the following framework.

CONSUMER DIGITAL HEALTH

Leverage mobile technology in the hands of consumers to power their health journey.

WORKFORCE DIGITAL HEALTH

Leverage mobile technology to improve quality, efficiency and stewardship of health service delivery.

community influence DIGITAL HEALTH

Coordinate adoption of digital health across implementers to accelerate scale and improve sustainability.

DIGITAL data transformation

Continually shape, course correct and evaluate implementation activities through timely generation and use of data.

The FOUR STRATEGIC AREAS of our Work
in Digital Health

CONSUMER DIGITAL HEALTH
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WORKFORCE DIGITAL HEALTH
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COMMUNITY INFLUENCE ON DIGITAL HEALTH
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DIGITAL DATA TRANSFORMATION
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Our Approaches to Digital Health

PSI supports a range of digital health technologies that help reimagine healthcare worldwide, putting our consumers at the center of the solution, and, whenever possible, bringing care to their hands.

EMRs enable clinics to gather, save and retrieve patient health information. EMRs also make it possible to send data electronically to PSI and directly to DHSI2, PSI’s management information system, relieving clinics and clinic staff from paper forms.

HNQIS is an open-source android App developed by PSI to assess, improve and monitor health workers’ skills when delivering health services. HNQIS is used by quality assurance officers in public and private clinics and across various health services including contraception, HIV and malaria. With HNQIS, clinicians benefit from tailored support by identifying areas of improvement while providing care. 

DHIS2 is an open-source management information system that PSI uses to collect, manage and visualize data across a single platform. PSI invests in DHIS2 to increase data informed decision-making. It is used in more than 40 countries across PSI’s network and crosses health areas, including malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and reproductive health.

Our
Experts

Martin Dale

Director, Digital Health and Monitoring

Kenya

Chris Purdy

Deputy Director, Digital Health and Monitoring

Nairobi

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