Mahesh Karra

Glad to see our PNAS commentary out. As the future of the DHS remains uncertain, we need clarity on global data governance and equity. Sustainable, transparent data systems are essential for accountability and progress. The world needs a North Star for global health data now.

Thanks 😄

Bring a friend: Leveraging financial and peer support to improve women’s reproductive agency in India Women’s agency in the domain of family planning and reproductive health is a fundamental determinant of their well-being. We experimentally evaluate t…

Glad to see this study in the Journal of Development Economics, with @sanukriti.bsky.social and Catalina Herrera Almanza. Over the course of this project, we saw 3 job moves, celebrated 1 wedding, and welcomed 3 babies. A life-cycle paper in every sense 😄

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

User-centered approaches to contraceptive counseling: Experimental evidence from urban Malawi We test how two user-centered approaches to counseling shape women’s contraceptive preferences and behavior: (1) tailored counseling that presents con…

This study got me thinking about how the FP/SRHR field confronts (or, may I say, skirts around) the interactions, and trade-offs, between autonomous decison-making in family planning and male involvement. Much more to learn here, for sure.

Link to the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Some new findings from a field experiment in Malawi to explore how: 1) tailoring counseling to women’s preferred contraceptive method attributes, and 2) prompting women with the choice of whether they wanted to invite their partners to counseling, affects contraceptive preferences and behavior.

Fantastic LCDS seminar with @mvkarra.bsky.social

He presented experimental evidence from urban Malawi on the effects of family planning programs on womens and their childrens outcomes.

The study is based on a large randomized trial with pregnant and postpartum women.

Family planning matters 🧵

Some professional news: I will be leaving Boston after 13 years to join @columbiauniversity.bsky.social as an Associate Professor of Population and Family Health later this month. I am looking forward to working with some fantastic colleagues and students and experiencing life in New York City.

🚨 Our preprint on the termination of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program is now available. How can we move towards an equitable data infrastructure and maintain research integrity after the DHS Program's termination? 🧵

Detection frequencies (above the minimum reporting limits) of the top 10 most frequently detected PFAS in the US EPA's ongoing Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (as of 1/2025)

EPA stated plans to backslide on its finalized #PFAS drinking water regs. I'm highlighting some problems with this (w/ graphs!) from my own research 🚰

1st: some replacement PFAS (incl. some they are reneging on) are more freq detected than the "legacy" PFOA & PFOS. This is based on EPA's own data!

County-level associations between drinking water PFAS contamination and COVID-19 mortality in the United States - Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology - County-level associations between drinking water PFAS contamination and COVID-19 mortality in the United States

Sharing our recent study (www.nature.com/articles/s41...), in which we found:
- positive, area-level associations b/w #PFAS contaminated drinking water and #COVID19 mortality w/in 1st yr of pandemic
- results consistent across 2 datasets w/ varied geography + robust to many sensitivity analyses