December 18, 2019

Ali Groves, PhD, MHS, assistant professor of Community Health and Prevention at the Dornsife School of Public Health (DSPH), was selected to participate in an advocacy development session at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland last week.

Groves has been recognized as a “key change-maker” in the field of scientists researching the needs of HIV-affected mothers and their young children, in part because of a commentary that she published in the Journal of the International AIDS Society, in which she argues that there has been insufficient attention to the unique needs of adolescent mothers in sub‐Saharan Africa in the attempt to eradicate disparities in HIV prevention and care.

The goal of the session, held on December 13, 2019, was to help build an evidence-based advocacy agenda. Groves participated in a series of roundtable discussions attended by other global health leaders working to reduce health disparities for HIV-affected adolescent mothers and their children.

During the meeting, she shared data from her intervention research in Durban, where she and her colleagues piloted an intervention to facilitate adolescent mothers’ return to school postpartum.

“It was an honor to attend this meeting at WHO on behalf of the Dornsife community,” says Groves. “It is vital that we translate science into policy and practice.”

Another highlight of the trip, Groves was joined by her mentee, Sarah Bowler, MPH ’20, a Dornsife Fellow and student in the department of Health Management and Policy at DSPH.

“I am committed to mentoring future public health leaders like Ms. Bowler, who is undoubtably a future leader in the development, implementation, and evaluation of policies to reduce maternal and child health disparities,” she says.