2011- Dr. Peter Winch

In by Avani Duggaraju

Dr. Peter Winch is Professor and Director of the Social and Behavioral Interventions Program in the Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (www.jhsph.edu/sbi).  He teaches courses on qualitative and formative research and applied medical anthropology.  His research focus is on improving the health of mothers, newborns and young children in areas where access to health facilities is poor or non-existent, and social, cultural and economic factors affecting the introduction of new treatments and therapies to improve the maternal and child health.

He has engaged with the work of NGOs through leading evaluations of child survival projects, conducting operational research in partnership with NGOs, and working for projects that provide technical assistant to NGOs (BASICS Project, Child Survival Support Project – CSSP, Child Survival Technical Support project – CSTS, and Maternal and Child Health Integrated Project – MCHIP).  He has played a major role in the development of a new framework for the household and community component of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses approach, and played a key role in organizing a workshop in Baltimore in January 2001 for PVOs and NGOs to discuss this framework.  His experience includes conducting operational research on the implementation of malaria and diarrhea prevention and treatment interventions in Tanzania, Uganda and Mali, and qualitative and operational research studies on a variety of other public health problems in Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Puerto Rico, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Mali, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.   His current research includes an evaluation of a program to promote correct malaria treatment in Ghana, evaluation of an integrated maternal-newborn-child health program in Morogoro Region, Tanzania, and design and evaluation of behavior change interventions to promote water and sanitation-related behaviors in Bangladesh.  He also serves as technical advisor with the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Project (MCHIP) for operations research projects on the delivery of maternal and child health interventions conducted by NGOs.