Priya John has a Master’s degree in Gender and Development and Social Work and has been working on public health issues for several years. As part of a funding agency focusing on health and nutrition, she worked extensively in Jharkhand with agencies and individuals working on maternal health concerns. Her area of focus was the network formed for delivery of services through the public health system. Priya worked with a local team in rural Jharkhand to systematically document maternal deaths; these cases were shared at different platforms with varied stakeholders. She hopes to conduct further research on the accessibility and availability of maternal healthcare for indigenous populations in hard-to-reach area. She continues to work for access to care through Pehal, based in Jharkhand.
Mentor
Professor Nutan P. Jain has a background in Psychology and Public Health. She obtained a PhD in Psychology from the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Meerut, and a Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She has over a decade of experience of working with national organizations like Central JALMA Institute for Leprosy, Council for Industrial and Scientific Research, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare and National Institute of Public Co-operation and Child Development. Presently, Nutan is Professor and Coordinator, Gender Heath Resource Centre at the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), Jaipur. During her tenure she has taught organizational behavior to post-graduate students, and conducted management development programs on leadership and management, gender and health at the national and international level. Her current research areas of interest are reproductive health with a special emphasis on gender and adolescent health, child rights, and monitoring and evaluation of health programs.
Project
As a Young Champion, Priya worked with the Indian Institute of Health Management Research to gain clinical knowledge, understand of access concerns, and to improve documentation and reporting of maternal deaths at the block or district level.