The Power of Women’s Global Health: A Comparison of Reproductive Multipurpose Prevention Technologies

Despite major progress in family planning and contraception, there are still many barriers to improving reproductive health including access to care and clinics, risks of HIV and STI, male-dominated cultures, and the burden of cost. The DIAL 3D Ring project serves to study the development of a 3D printed multi-purpose intravaginal ring with contraceptive and HIV/STI prevention purposes, in coordination with the UNC NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, UNC School of Medicine, and UNC Gillings School of Public Health. As a sophomore, I joined the DIAL 3D women's health study as a qualitative researcher and after working on this project throughout undergraduate career, I have realized the true power of women's global health. This thesis research question explores how the DIAL 3D technology we are developing serves to globally progress women’s health in comparison to other multi-purpose prevention technologies as seen in international intravaginal ring (IVR) acceptability studies. To truly advance women’s health, women must be in control of their own decisions regarding their bodies. In the last three years of studying qualitative data on women’s preferences for intravaginal rings, we aimed to understand how a multitude of factors could affect women’s acceptance of the ring. With data from qualitative focus groups and discussions, our team was able to provide concrete feedback for the engineering team throughout the DIAL 3D ring development stage. Our results provided us with strong data in terms of users’ likely uptake adherence for different features of the physical ring. To fully answer my research question, the data analysis completed in this thesis not only focused on whether or not women would want to use the ring, but what features made them feel most excited and empowered to use it since that is ultimately what will progress women’s health. By looking at size, texture and flexibility, hygiene and cleanliness, color, and ring functionality, I found that results from DIAL 3D are very consistent with the findings of other IVR studies in terms of acceptability, providing great potential for the DIAL 3D ring to help women feel protected and excited about their birth control technology.Bachelor of Art