Lauren J. Wallace is a Senior Researcher at the Dodowa Health Research Centre, in Greater Accra, Ghana, under the Research and Development Division of Ghana Health Service. She is a medical anthropologist whose research critically examines the making and implementation of maternal and reproductive policies at national and sub-national levels. Her PhD (2017, McMaster University), funded by a Vanier Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, was an ethnographic study of family size and family planning in northern Ghana. She has since ‘studied up’ to examine the dynamics of national priority setting for maternal and reproductive health in Ghana and Uganda ethnographically.

Her new open access edited volume with Katerini T. Storeng and Margaret MacDonald: Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health: From Policy Spaces to Sites of Practice (Springer) treats global health policies as ethnographic objects, tracking the processes and politics of their making, the mechanisms of their implementation in diverse contexts, and people’s intimate encounters with their consequences and effects.

Dr. Wallace is currently the Ghana Principal Investigator of the COVID-19 in West and Central Africa (CATALYSE) study. CATALYSE, funded by IDRC, examines health policy and systems responses to COVID-19 and their intended and unintended effects in 6 West and Central African countries, in collaboration with national policymakers. She is also a Co-Investigator on Gender Transformative and Responsive Health Systems for Adolescents (AdoWA 2) (funded by IDRC) https://www.wahpscon.org/adowa-gtr-2/ and is a Researcher with the Ghana arm of the Community-Led Responsive and Effective Urban Health Systems Research Consortium (CHORUS) https://chorusurbanhealth.org (funded by UK FCDO).

Dr. Wallace teaches Courses in Ethnography and Qualitative Methods in the Faculty of Public Health Membership Program at the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is presently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University, where she has also held an appointment as an instructor in the Midwifery Education Program.

 

Publications (selected):

 Wallace, L.J., Enyimayew Afun, N.E., Ofosu, A., Joshua A. Arthur, Aryeetey, G.C., Nonvignon, J., Agyepong, I.A. (Forthcoming 2022). Local and central governance of the response to the first wave of COVID-19 in Ghana: Strengths, disconnects and lessons. Ghana Medical Journal.

 Wallace, L.J., MacDonald, M.E. and Storeng, K.T., (2022). Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health: From Policy Spaces to Sites of Practice. N.Y: Springer. Open Access. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-84514-8

 Wallace, L.J., Agyepong, I., Baral, S., Baruna, S., Das, M., Haque, R., et al. (2022). The role of the private sector and government responses in the COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences from four health systems. Frontiers in Public Health, 10: 878225. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.878225.

Ndu, M., Nouvet, E., Wallace L.J. (2022). Barriers to vasectomy acceptance and uptake in Nigeria: A review of the literature. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 26(3): 37-45. DOI: 10.29063/ajrh2022/v26i3.5.

Sina, A., Wallace, L.J., Arthur, J.A., Kwakye, S., & Adongo, P.B. (2021). Self-medication perceptions and practice among pregnant women attending Antenatal clinic in Wa Municipality, Ghana. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 25(4):89-98. DOI: 10.29063/ajrh2021/v25i4.10.

Wallace L.J., Nouvet, E. Bortolussi, R., Arthur, J.A., Amporfu, E., Arthur, A., Barimah, K.B., & 19 others. (2020). COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: Impacts on vulnerable populations and sustaining home-grown solutions. Canadian Journal of Public Health. Oct;111(5):649-653.doi: 10.17269/s41997-020-00399-y

 Wallace, L.J., & Kapiriri, L. (2019). Priority setting for maternal, newborn and child health in Uganda: A qualitative study evaluating actual practice. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1). DOI: 10.1186/s12913-019-4170-6

Kapiriri, L., Lee, N-M., Wallace, L.J, & Kwesiga, B. (2019). Beyond cost-effectiveness, morbidity and mortality: A comprehensive evaluation of priority setting for HIV programming in Uganda. BMC Public Health, 19(1). DOI: 10.1186/s12889-019-6690-8

 Wallace, L.J., & Adongo, P.B. (2018). Change and continuity in Kassena men’s perceptions of family planning in northern Ghana. Human Organization, 77(2), 135-145. DOI: 10.17730/0018-7259-77.2.135

Wallace, L.J. (2017). It doesn’t match my blood: Contraceptive side effects and Kassena women in northern Ghana. In Gender, feminism and global cross-cultural connections. Edited by Glenda Tibe Bonifacio. Bingley, UK: Emerald.  

Wallace, L.J., & Kapiriri, L. (2017). How are new vaccines prioritized in low income countries? A case study of Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine and Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Uganda. International Journal of Health Policy and Management 6(12), 707-720. DOI:10.15171/IJHPM.2017.37

Wallace, L.J. (2017) Case study: Culture, language and privilege. In Comprehensive midwifery: The role of the midwife in health care practice, education and research, an interactive guide to the theory and evidence of practice. Edited by Eileen K. Hutton & Beth Murray-Davis. Montreal: Pressbooks.

 Arseneau, E., & Wallace, L.J. (2017). What to do with the placenta: An uninformed choice discussion. Canadian Journal of Midwifery Research and Practice, 16(1), 12-22.