The Alliance Lift is a series that spotlights the journeys of Alliance alumni shaping health systems around the globe. In this Q&A, Ms Idil Shekh Mohamed, a Techincal Officer at the Alliance, talks with Dr Rachidatou Compaoré, a public health physician in Burkina Faso, and researcher with over a decade of experience working at the intersection of health policy, systems research, and reproductive health.
As a Research Fellow at the Institute of Research in Health Sciences in Ouagadougou, Rachidatou’s work has informed a national malaria control strategy and changed practice around maternal care across West Africa.
Idil spoke with Rachidatou about her journey from clinical medicine to public health, shaped by a deep concern for the social realities behind illness, the inequalities she witnessed firsthand in hospital wards that couldn’t be solved by medicine alone. In this interview, also available as video and podcast, she shared how this path led her into reproductive and adolescent health research, the challenges of conducting policy-relevant studies in West Africa, and her vision for empowering local researchers and strengthening health systems across the region.
Learning from the past
My path into health policy and system research didn't begin in lectures. It didn't begin in conference rooms or policy papers, but it began in everyday encounters with people navigating complex health systems across diverse settings in Africa.
I was in the paediatric wards, seeing these little babies, small kids suffering – and most of the time, it wasn’t only medical care that they needed. There were other factors, such as poverty and social background, that we didn’t have real power to do something about. So when I took my public health studies during my training, I thought that I could contribute more through this discipline than being a clinician. So, I shifted from clinical to public health training, and then to research.
Q: You’ve worked extensively in maternal, sexual and reproductive health. How has your focus on adolescent sexual rights and safe abortion care evolved?
My real experience with sexual and reproductive health and mostly with abortion, started with WHO HRP Alliance, a multi-country study on safe abortion. We were leading the study for Burkina Faso. It was challenging at first because, that was when I realized my positioning within my culture and my education. I realized the weight of unsafe abortion on maternal mortality. Sometimes people would ask, “Why are you interested in abortion? You must shift your topic from something more important". And I say that this also is important because unsafe abortion is the third or the fourth maternal mortality cause in most African countries. So that's how I started with abortion.
Through my research, I've seen that there is some inequity between adolescents and older women. Adolescents face more difficulties in accessing care and more stigmatization. That's another of my main research topics now, adolescent health. We will start a study on how to autonomize adolescents in sexual and reproductive health in humanitarian settings, especially here in Burkina Faso.
Q: What are some of the challenges you encounter doing policy-relevant research in Burkina Faso, or other similar contexts in West Africa?
The most important one is financial resources to conduct studies. But when you conduct research on sensitive topics, you also need support to stay strong and continue with these topics.
Living in the present
Q: How is the research you are conducting contributing to broader health systems strengthening efforts in Burkina Faso?
We do our best to bring good, strong evidence that can shape policies. However, translating knowledge into evidence and policy is not always straightforward. Therefore, we are also contributing to building capacities within our various institutions to shape the next generation of leaders in this field that will contribute to promoting well-being in terms of health and rights.
Q: What have you learned about communicating research and collaborating across different contexts and institutions?
Research is not limited to researchers, and we are trying to shift this understanding. The population where we are conducting research are also knowledge holders that we can learn from. We are going beyond only researcher, beyond multidisciplinary to more transdisciplinary. But we have to learn how to translate it in a way that is understandable to policy-makers, but also to communities, to have a better impact.
Levelling up for the future
Q: What are some areas of health systems or policy research that you believe deserve more attention in West African contexts like Burkina Faso?
We should start by shifting the way we frame it and give more leadership to local researchers, local policy-makers, to express their needs in terms of what is important for them, for their communities, for their populations in term of public health problems and public health priorities.
We also need to have real collaboration, not just directing what you should do, but giving real leadership to local leaders. We need to explore this decolonization theme and how we should do it.
Q: What kind of structural support or change would be most helpful for researchers like you to thrive?
It's a critical question, but I think that we should try to multiply initiatives like CRESPA to break language barriers. I know that it's not only French-speaking countries in Africa that face these barriers. Breaking down language barriers can expose people to more knowledge, allowing them to have more opportunities with grant submissions and have the capacity to get their own grants to conduct the studies and the research that is important to them. This will foster more collaboration.
Q: Any final thought or message for our listeners and viewers?
What we do, we should do it for people, for their health, for their better well-being, for them to enjoy their rights in all terms. Because at the end of the day, evidence should serve dignity, and the health system should reflect justice, and research should always be rooted in care. That's the kind of work I believe in and the kind of future I hope we all continue building together.
