Susan Mlangwa
University of Minnesota
Home country: Tanzania

I received a BA in Sociology at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1994, where my major was in Medical Sociology. In 1998 I graduated with an MA degree with a specialization in Medical Sociology. My MA dissertation is on Adoption of New Health Practices the case of Insecticide Mosquito Bed-nets among rural communities in Ifakara, Tanzania. With the growing incidence of malaria and infant mortality associated with malaria, in this study I was looking at the factors influencing families' likeliness to use the insecticide mosquito bed-nets as a malaria disease prevention strategy specifically for children under five. I have worked in the research field of work for my entire life since I graduated with my first degree. Specifically I have worked in disease prevention and the social aspects of health promotion research i.e. gender, culture, poverty and environment. As a Researcher I have worked in different capacities. I began from working as a field research assistant in the Dar es Salaam City Council Urban Health Project in 1994-1995. Under the same position I joined Ifakara Health Research and Development Center (IHRDC) in 1995-1998. Then I became an associate consultant in environmental and poverty impact assessment studies with Norplan Uganda and COWI Denmark in 1999-2001. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2004 I was a Director, managing regional research activities with Research International East Africa Company from 2001 to 2004. In the latter I headed two offices Uganda and Tanzania. In this capacity I was exposed to working with non-governmental organizations on the social marketing of family planning and reproductive health products among other development and health promotion research programs. My interest has always been on health promotion or health as a security factor, disease prevention, health seeking behavior, and their link to gender inequality/ conflicts in East Africa and Africa as a whole. I am currently specifically drawn to understand the interplay between gender, culture and health and how these affect health promotion and human security in the time of HIV/AIDS. While working with the IHRDC I was awarded a scholarship to study my MA at the University of Dar es Salaam with the Swiss Tropical Institute, Switzerland. The Institute's main interest is on disease prevention research in Tropical Diseases. I worked on a multi-country reproductive health project (Tanzania, Ghana, Argentina, Malaysia, France, Pakistan) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation which culminated into a book chapter in 1998 titled Competing Ideologies: Adolescence, Knowledge and Silences in Dar es Salaam. I co -authored the chapter with a professor of the University of Basel, Dr. Brigit Obrist van Eeuwijk. This is among the works that ignited my interest in gender and health. Working with Research International drew me closer into gender issues as they unfold in relation to HIV/AIDS prevention programs. As a third year Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota in Sociology department I have been awarded the Compton Fellowship.