Adolescent menstrual health: tracing the impacts of unmet needs in Bangladesh

Open to students

The ‘Adolescent Menstrual Experiences and Health Cohort (AMEHC) Study’ in Bangladesh aims to understand the way that menstrual health needs change during adolescence. It also seeks to quantify the effects of early menstrual experiences on education and health outcomes. The study responds to the urgent need for better data and evidence to understand adolescent girls' menstrual health and quantify the impact this has on girls' lives.

Objective

We aim to understand adolescent girls' changing menstrual health experiences and needs throughout their adolescent years and test the impacts of menstrual health on girls’ lives. The study will quantify the effects of early menstrual experiences and sustained unmet menstrual health needs in adolescence on education, physical health, mental health, and sexual and reproductive health outcomes.

While qualitative studies have described consequences of unmet menstrual health needs for health and education, studies have yet to document the extent to which menstrual health impacts these outcomes to prompt commensurate and sustained investment. A longitudinal cohort is best placed to estimate these effects.

The AMEHC study will provide:

world-first data on the ways in which menstrual health challenges change throughout adolescence
rigorous estimates of the effects of unmet menstrual health needs on girls' education, physical health, mental health and reproductive health over time.

This study will build essential evidence to understand adolescent menstrual health needs and their impacts over the life-course.

Approach

The study will follow a cohort of 2,000 adolescent girls from 12 years of age, around the time of menarche, through to later adolescence. Yearly surveys will document changing menstrual health experiences and needs and track their impacts girls’ lives.

Embedded sub-studies will implement more intensive (2 month) follow ups among sub-sets of the cohort to understand the variability in experiences over shorter time spans. Before the cohort, a preliminary phase of work will serve to develop, adapt, and test measures for use in the cohort study.

Menstruation is a frequent, repeated experience, and the impacts of unmet needs are likely to be the result of ongoing exposure rather than a single challenging menstrual period.

Longitudinal studies also allow us to explore the relationships between early life events and later outcomes, and to understand the timing of experiences so that we can draw stronger causal inferences about the impacts of menstrual health.

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The AMEHC study aims to understand adolescent girls' changing menstrual health experiences and needs throughout their adolescent years and test the impacts of menstrual health on girls’ lives.

Student opportunities

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A broad focus on menstrual health needs

The study includes a broad focus on menstrual health needs, including:

knowledge and education

water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in homes and schools,

girls’ experiences of menstrual hygiene management needs

social support and social norms surrounding menstruation

care for discomforts and disorders, such as primary dysmenorrhea.

We have opportunities for PhD students to join the study and develop thesis proposals that sit within the broader program of work. We have opportunities for MSc/MPH students to use the quantitative cohort data to address defined research questions as part of a research project.

The student will work with the Global Adolescent Health Working Group, Burnet Institute Myanmar Office, and research partners in Bangladesh.