Salome Wawire
Brown University, Department of Anthropology/Nigeria

Research Topic: Practices Related to Adolescent Fertility and Reproductive Health in Kenya

Salome is starting her 4th year in the Anthropology (demography) program at Brown University. She has an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and a B.A. in Community Development from Agra University, Agra, India.

Prior to joining graduate school at Brown University, she worked as a research trainee at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), where her main responsibilities involved active participation in the entire research process – recruitment, training and supervision of fieldworkers, data management, analysis, report writing, and preparation for dissemination to specific audiences. Research topic areas included reproductive health (including HIV/AIDS), fertility, migration, family planning, mortality, health behavior and poverty.

Salome’s current research focuses on the connection between sexual activity and ethnic identity and differential attention paid to contraception, especially condom use, in multicultural/multiethnic settings or in settings dominated by a single cultural/ethnic group. The issues here are being studied in the context of the introduction of male circumcision among the Luo, a cultural group that does not traditionally circumcise, but is increasingly adopting the practice as a measure to prevent HIV infection. She is exploring the linkages between circumcision and risky sexual behavior and in particular, whether circumcision is being seen as a substitute for condoms, with direct consequences for fertility and HIV transmission.

Salome’s future plans are to engage in social and health research in Africa to contribute to both academic and general knowledge of the continent, and to improve the well-being of the peoples by doing policy-relevant research touching on their daily lives. More specifically, she would like to focus on adolescent sexual and reproductive health.