Duff

G.

Gillespie

, PhD

I am interested in transforming knowledge into action and especially the diffusion of innovations. While I hope to make some contribution to knowledge creation, I have more experience and skills in advancing knowledge utilization by policy makers and program administrators. Concerning knowledge creation, I am currently analyzing family planning through an equity lens using DHS data from the 44 country surveys that include asset index information. I will also explore the inequality of abortion use in those DHS-countries with good abortion statistics. Lastly, I will examine the “inverse equity hypothesis” using DHS data from surveys in countries that have had more than one DHS.
Much of my energy, however, will be devoted to promoting interventions with strong evidence of effectiveness, but which have not been adopted and/or funded by policy makers, e.g., family planning as a core component of post-abortion care programs. I also plan to work on identifying and filling evidence gaps. While some interventions with strong evidence bases are not adopted, other promising interventions have inadequate or the wrong type of evidence, e.g., the epidemiological based relationship between under 5 mortality and birth spacing. I will be less engaged in conducting research than in identifying gaps and obtaining support for others to fill these gaps, utilizing my relationship with funding organizations.