Karra Presents Findings of Study on Family Planning in Malawi
On February 17, 2021, Mahesh Karra, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center, spoke during an event hosted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)-Malawi on family planning in urban Malawi.
During the event, titled “Exploring User-Centered Counseling in Contraceptive Decision-Making in Malawi,” Karra and Kexin Zhang, PhD candidate at Boston University’s Department of Economics, discussed their recent study that aimed at exploring how effective user-centered counselling approaches may be to help women in Malawi make informed decisions when considering contraceptive methods. The study tested elements of user-centered counselling and investigated two channels through which user centered counselling can affect concordance between women’s preferences and choices over contraceptive methods.
As stated in an event recap, Karra and Zhang propose further exploring the trade-off that women face between: 1) making independent choices that reflect their individual preferences versus 2) incorporating their partner’s preferences to make “jointly, but not necessarily individually better off” decisions over contraceptive methods.
Further details on the event and the study’s findings can be read on IFPRI-Malawi’s website.
Mahesh Karra’s academic and research interests are broadly in development economics, health economics, quantitative methods, and applied demography. His research utilizes experimental and non-experimental methods to investigate the relationships between population, health, and economic development in low- and middle-income countries. Read more about Professor Karra on his faculty profile.