PROVIDENCE, RI — Safe and discreet disposal of sanitary pads is a luxury taken for granted in most high-income areas. In under-resourced settings however, the inability to dispose of sanitary products is not just an inconvenience, but a significant barrier for menstruators in achieving educational, career, and life goals.
Menstrual hygiene, despite its importance to the health and wellness of millions around the world, is a sensitive, multifaceted topic. Considerations of menstrual health and hygiene include sanitary elements as well as psychological factors. Researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health are eager to make these considerations and Jennifer Pellowski, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, and doctoral student Alison Weber are embarking on a collaborative project to develop new technology for menstrual hygiene and health.
The researchers are approaching the project from two perspectives: first with a broad consideration of water, sanitation, and hygiene concerns; and second, from the perspective of menstrual hygiene and health as a human rights and gender equality issue. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the project aims to serve under-resourced settings, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“The goal of this project,” Weber said, “is to develop a menstrual pad disposal technology that is acceptable, desirable, and accessible for menstruators. Essentially, we want every menstruating person to have somewhere private to discard a used pad, with confidence that it will be completely destroyed.”
The research team intends to find innovative solutions while maintaining a key focus on community engagement and a careful consideration of the social impact of potential solutions. An essential element of the project will be involvement from local communities. “We are not just focusing on developing the technology - that is a challenge in and of itself,” Weber said, “but we are also actively including menstruating people as well as community-based organizations in the design process.”
This project was created through a partnership with Biomass Controls PBC, a company that focuses on technologies and innovations to improve global health. In developing a project with complex social, cultural, as well as technical aspects, the collaboration will utilize Brown University expertise in behavioral sciences to help meet the needs of target populations. In describing the collaboration, Pellowski explained “additional expertise was integral to really understand the implementation needs of the community and how to translate those needs into engineering plans.”
After the development of a technology that is ready to be tested in the field, Brown researchers will support Biomass Controls by using implementation science informed approaches to get feedback from menstruating people about acceptability, desirability, and accessibility. This input will center the needs of menstruating people and inform future versions of the technology. The implementation aspect of the project is particularly exciting for Pellowski. “Once we have a technology that works well,” she said, “thinking about how this technology can be integrated into many different contexts sets up a whole new set of research questions grounded in community-engaged implementation science.”