From leaky pipeline to leadership: Women boost health equity in Tanzania

This is Part 5 of a five-part multimedia feature, Dispatches from Mwanza, about Weill Cornell Medicine's collaboration with Weill Bugando School of Medicine to improve health care in Tanzania, the U.S. and around the world.

A group of college students gathered in a classroom in Mwanza, Tanzania, to act out a scenario they say is all too common. A male student played the part of a professor while a female student pretended to face an excruciating decision: accept his unwanted romantic advances - or accept a failing grade.

Fortunately, the student had a place to report the sexual harassment and get help: the "gender desk"at Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences, the home of Weill Bugando School of Medicine, a long-time collaborator with Weill Cornell Medicine. The desk, or gender office, has become a model for other universities in Tanzania.

The students created the skit, filmed it and posted it on social media to spread the word that the office, which serves both men and women, ensures confidentiality.

"Nobody's going to tell about their situation, and the gender desk is going to help bring back their self-worth, their self-confidence, so they can focus on their academics," said Tuskige Mercy Aswile, who helped write the script as a fourth-year medical student at Weill Bugando.

"A lot of students, male and female alike, are not able to reach their goals because they're being harassed" - a common problem in schools in many parts of the world, she said. "And this affects them not only physically, but also psychologically, so the students aren't able to fulfill their dreams."

The office is a major accomplishment of the Weill Bugando chapter of the Women in Global Health Research Initiative, a program of Weill Cornell's Center for Global Health. The initiative aims to break down the barriers - such as sexual harassment - that prevent women from taking on leadership roles in global health. The initiative also focuses on increasing research on women's health.

About 75% of global health undergraduates are women, but only 25% of global health leaders are women, according to a Weill Cornell study published in 2014.

When women share in leadership, health care improves for everyone, said Dr. Adolfine Hokororo, M.S. '14, a pediatrician and clinical epidemiologist who is among the founders and an advocate of the Weill Bugando chapter.

"Studies have shown when women are leading, even in villages, they will give priority to health issues. So, for that reason, we feel like in health, we really need women to take a lead together with men," said Hokororo, who helped launch the initiative.

Women scientists are also more likely to consider the importance of sex as a biological variable in their analyses, which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognizes as an essential part of research. That's because sex is a critical determinant of health outcomes, said Dr. Jennifer Downs, M.D. '04, M.Sc. '11, the Ehrenkranz Family/Orli R. Etingin, M.D. Associate Professor in Women's Health at Weill Cornell.

"Promoting women to leadership in global health and retaining them in the field as scientists will improve health and science for the whole world," she said.