WHO/HRP Open Call for Sexual Health-Related Measures and Survey Instruments
Juliana Anderson, 1 Kelly VanTreeck 2
Sexual health survey data are often difficult to compare across studies and between countries
because survey instruments can be markedly different. In addition, many survey instruments
were developed for use in high-income countries, without attention to undertaking similar
research in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). How can we bridge the gap between
sexual health survey instruments? How can we engage a broader group of people in LMICs to
organize population-based sexual and reproductive health research?
Recognizing these unmet needs, the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special
Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP)
and partners are reaching out to sexual and reproductive health professionals around the world to
develop a standardized sexual health survey instrument. The open call asks researchers and
programmers to submit new/existing survey ideas, instruments, domains, or items. Although the
focus is on developing a single harmonized survey instrument, implementation considerations for
population-representative surveys are also welcome.
Individuals whose submissions are highly ranked and have relevant experience will be supported
to join a 72-hour WHO/HRP hackathon in January 2020. A hackathon is a sprint-like event that
brings together individuals with diverse expertise to solve a problem. The hackathon will be
hosted by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The co-chair of the steering committee, Joseph Tucker, noted: “This is a unique opportunity to
bring together sexual and reproductive health researchers from around the world. We often work
in silos and don’t realize that our final research outputs may be difficult to compare across
settings. This open call is a step towards bridging this gap.”
Applications will be accepted in all six official UN languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French,
Russian, and Spanish). Any sexual or reproductive health researcher can submit an application
and there are several categories for providing feedback in specific domains (you can choose at
least one): feedback on survey domains, implementation considerations, creative ideas, or entire
survey instruments. The team is particularly interested in responses from people in LMICs. The
deadline for entries is October 24 th 2019 at 11:59 GMT.
The open call is available here.
Please direct any questions to Eneyi Kpokiri at Eneyi.Kpokiri@lshtm.ac.uk.
1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
2 Department of Reproductive Health and Research including
UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and
Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), World Health Organization, Geneva,
Switzerland
Resources:
1) Open call: https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/03-09-2019-seeking-feedback-to-
develop-a-population-representative-sexual-health-survey-instrument
2) More about WHO/HRP: https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/hrp/en/