Eleventh International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

High-quality health research is key to generate evidence for a more effective health emergencies response; especially in West Africa, where COVID-19 and Ebola successfully demonstrated how gender and social inequalities significantly contribute to worse health outcomes. The “Building Capacities in Gender Mainstreaming for Ethics Committee Members from Senegal to West Africa” project aims to enhance the capacities of West African National Research Ethics Committees in mainstreaming sex and gender approaches in research monitoring and evaluation. In January 2020, the Training Programme in Gender Mainstreaming and Sex and Gender Approaches to Evaluating and Inspecting Health Research was conducted for collaborators of the Senegalese National Health Research Ethics Committee. The training was replicated as a trainees-led refreshment training in January 2021. Their effectiveness was evaluated through a mixed-methods approach assessing knowledge acquisition, satisfaction, and the trainees’ post-training attitudes concerning gender mainstreaming and perceptions of the program. Twenty participants attended the first training and 18 attended the refreshment version. Ten participants attended both trainings. Knowledge acquisition was positive with an overall improvement of 8.54% in 2020 (11.54% for women and 3.02% for men), and an increase of 16.42% in 2021 (18.2% in women and 18.75% in men). Concerning attitudinal changes, 74% agreed on gender mainstreaming’s importance for all phases of their research projects and was applicable to their lines of work. This training is expected to contribute to the promotion of gender-transformative research conduct in Senegal, and in turn, to the reduction of gender and health inequalities.

Presenters

Farah Nabil
Student, PhD in Health Sciences, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

Elhadji Mbaye
Head of Health and Social Science Unit, IRESSEF: Institut de Recherche en Santé, de Surveillance Epidemioloque et de Formations, Senegal

Guillermo Z. Martínez Pérez
President, African Women's Research Observatory, Spain

Sarr Samba Cor
Research Manager, Ministry of Health, Senegal