Madhavi Jha, a doctoral student in Economics, spent this past winter in Suri, India, conducting research for her project, “Addressing Gender Disparities in the Diagnosis of NCDs in Rural India,” in collaboration with her coauthor, Lauren Rice. Supported by a Mittal Institute Winter Research Grant, her work examines gender disparities in diagnosing and treating non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in rural India, with a particular focus on men’s lower engagement in preventive healthcare.
Preliminary qualitative findings reveal that men use public healthcare services less frequently than women and have lower awareness of their own health status. The project seeks to identify the barriers preventing men from participating in NCD screenings and explores potential interventions to increase male uptake of preventive care. Below, she shares insights from her research experience.
Mittal Institute: Madhavi, can you walk us through the aim and motivation of your research?
Madhavi Jha: Our project aimed to investigate gender disparities in preventive healthcare utilization, focusing on men’s lower engagement with NCD screening in rural India. We pursued this project because NCDs are a major public health concern, yet during previous field work we noticed that men remain significantly underdiagnosed and undertreated compared to women. We chose the location to be rural West Bengal because we had established relationships with an NGO as well as the public sector healthcare system, which allowed us to interview a wide range of providers and patients. Our goal was to quantify the gender disparities, identify key barriers, and explore interventions to increase men’s participation in preventive care.
Mittal Institute: What was most impactful about your experience?
Madhavi Jha: One of the most impactful aspects of this experience was testing an intervention designed to increase male participation in preventive healthcare. In one village, we advertised a “male-focused health day” (even though the camp itself was identical to the standard health camp), while in another village, we simply promoted a general health camp. The response was striking as men were far more energized by the male-focused framing, leading to a significant increase in their participation. Seeing our hypothesis play out in real time was incredibly rewarding, especially as we witnessed individuals getting diagnosed, reinforcing the real-world impact of our work and the potential for meaningful change in preventive healthcare engagement.
Madhavi (second from left) and her coauthor Lauren Rice (third from right) at a health and wellness center, which is a primary healthcare center. She poses with a government health worker (second from right) whose main job is to provide care for non-communicable diseases. Also pictured are the surveyor, and two other health workers.
Mittal Institute: Bring us into your daily life—who were you meeting, what institutions were you visiting?
Madhavi Jha: Our daily life during the grant was dynamic. We focused on three main tasks: (i) designing, testing, and refining a population survey to assess NCD health status, testing history, healthcare preferences, and masculinity norms; (ii) meeting a wide range of stakeholders, including the district’s chief medical officer, government doctors, public sector health workers specializing in NCD care, and informal healthcare providers, while also developing a short provider survey; and (iii) piloting an intervention to increase male participation in health camps. Each day involved traveling to villages to test surveys and speak with individuals, visiting healthcare centers to interview providers, or attending health camps to observe community engagement and intervention results firsthand.
Left image: A man is getting his blood pressure measured by a health worker during an NCD testing camp. This is the camp advertised as a male-focused camp. Right image: Another NCD testing camp. This was advertised as a general camp, and the proportion of men was much lower in this camp.
Mittal Institute: How will this experience help you reach your academic goals?
Madhavi Jha: This experience was invaluable in helping us refine our understanding of gender disparities in preventive healthcare and laying the groundwork for a larger randomized controlled trial (RCT). Through fieldwork, we gained insights into how men perceive public healthcare, the role of masculinity norms in health-seeking behavior, and the barriers that prevent men from getting tested for NCDs. Our survey design process allowed us to develop better measures for assessing health beliefs and decision-making, and refine hypotheses for future interventions. The intervention we piloted reinforced the potential for behavioral nudges to shift health-seeking behavior, providing us with a strong foundation to design a full-scale RCT that tests strategies to increase male engagement with preventive healthcare services.
“Through fieldwork, we gained insights into how men perceive public healthcare, the role of masculinity norms in health-seeking behavior, and the barriers that prevent men from getting tested for NCDs.”
An informal healthcare provider taking the blood pressure of his patient.
Mittal Institute: What was the most memorable moment from your student grant?
Madhavi Jha: One of the most memorable moments was observing healthcare providers in action, particularly an informal provider who showed remarkable care and attentiveness toward a patient. It was a reminder of the important role these providers play in rural health systems, often serving as the first point of contact for individuals despite having no formal medical qualifications. Witnessing this firsthand reinforced the need to consider these providers when designing interventions to improve preventive healthcare uptake.
☆ The views represented herein are those of the interview subject and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Mittal Institute, its staff, or its Steering Committee.
