Katerini T Storeng
Biographic Data
| ID | 102420 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Katerini T Storeng |
| GIVEN NAMES | Katerini T |
| FAMILY NAME | Storeng |
| SIGNATURE | STORENG K T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oslo |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0032-7006 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 174 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Strategic solidarity
BACKGROUND: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Nordic states were praised for leadership on global vaccine equity, notably through strong support for the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) and COVAX. At the same time, like other high‐income countries, they took decisive measures to secure priority access to vaccines for their own populations, contributing to global inequities. Scholarship on global health security and diplomacy often treats …
Globalization and health in an emerging new world order
The Gates Foundation’s network diplomacy in European donor countries
The Gates Foundation is the most influential private philanthropic foundation in global health and development. This article examines how the Foundation has developed an unparalleled capacity to rally other donors to its priorities, which include the development and distribution of technological tools to reduce the burden of infectious disease and child mortality in the world’s most impoverished regions. Using publicly available data, the article…
The Business of Pandemic Intelligence
During the Covid‐19 pandemic, tech startups emerged as important providers of pandemic intelligence, leveraging diverse data sources and advanced computational methods to advise public policy on disease spread and response strategies. This article presents a case study of two tech startups, Airfinity and BlueDot, situating their rise within the increasing private‐sector influence in a domain traditionally dominated by the World Health Organizatio…
Covax, vaccine donations and the politics of global vaccine inequity
BACKGROUND: In 2021, donor countries, the pharmaceutical industry, and the COVAX initiative promoted vaccine donation or "dose-sharing" as a main solution to the inequitable global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. COVAX positioned itself as a global vaccine-sharing hub that promised to share doses "equitably, effectively and transparently," according to rational criteria overseen by independent scientists. This article provides a critical analy…
Covax and the many meanings of sharing
The Big Digital Contact Tracing Experiment 1
Over a third of the world’s countries have launched contact‐tracing apps in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, generating much hype about the prospect of automating contact‐tracing to manage outbreaks and to alleviate costly and labour‐intensive ‘manual’ contact tracing. Despite the stringent scientific criteria applied to the development of vaccines and other ‘biomedical countermeasures’ in responding to the pandemic, digital contact tracing has…
Digital Technology and the Political Determinants of Health Inequities
This special issue introduction makes the case for analyzing the rise of digital health technologies within global public health within the framework of political determinants of health and identifying how digital technologies impact, both positively and negatively, inequities in health. This special issue brings together diverse perspectives from academics, policy makers, practitioners and activists from around the world, most of whom participat…
Interrogating the World Bank’s role in global health knowledge production, governance, and finance
Covax and the rise of the ‘super public private partnership’ for global health
COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), has been promoted as 'the only global solution' to vaccine equity and ending the Covid-19 pandemic. ACT-A and COVAX build on the public-private partnership (PPP) model that dominates global health governance, but take it to a new level, constituting an experimental form that we call the 'super-PPP'. Based on an analysis of COVAX's governance structure and its difficul…
Behind the scenes
Global health donors increasingly embrace international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) as partners, often relying on them to conduct political advocacy in recipient countries, especially in controversial policy domains like reproductive health. Although INGOs are the primary recipients of donor funding, they are expected to work through national affiliates or counterparts to enable 'locally-led' change. Using prospective policy analysis a…
Civil society participation in global public private partnerships for health
The growth of global public-private partnerships for health has opened up new spaces for civil society participation in global health governance. Such participation is often justified by the claim that civil society organizations, because of their independence and links to communities, can help address democratic deficits in global-level decision-making processes. This article examines the notion of 'civil society engagement' within major public-…
Policy, paperwork and 'postographs
Targets and indicators set at the global level are powerful tools that govern health systems in low-income countries. Skilled birth attendance at a health facility is an important indicator for monitoring maternal mortality reduction worldwide. This paper examines how health workers negotiate policy implementation through the translation of clinical care into registries and reports. It does so by analysing the links between the global policy of i…
Policy ideals and everyday politics in the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health—the role of ethnography
Guilty until proven innocent”
The MMR - maternal mortality ratio - has risen from obscurity to become a major global health indicator, even appearing as an indicator of progress towards the global Sustainable Development Goals. This has happened despite intractable challenges relating to the measurement of maternal mortality. Even after three decades of measurement innovation, maternal mortality data are widely presumed to be of poor quality, or, as one leading measurement ex…
Lives in the balance”
A decade ago, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) was established to combat the growing fragmentation of global health action into uncoordinated, issue-specific efforts. Inspired by dominant global public-private partnerships for health, the PMNCH brought together previously competing advocacy coalitions for safe motherhood and child survival and attracted support from major donors, foundations and professional bodies. …
Building the nation's body
L'avortement volontaire au Burkina Faso
Au Burkina Faso comme dans de nombreux autres pays africains, l’avortement provoqué se caractérise par une réprobation sociale et une restriction légale. Cependant, l’avortement non médicalisé est un problème de santé publique majeur qui constitue l’une des causes principales de la mortalité maternelle. Non seulement il est dramatique pour les femmes concernées et pour les travailleurs de la santé en contact avec elles, mais les acteurs de la sph…
The politics of unsafe abortion in Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso, abortion is legally restricted and socially stigmatised, but also frequent. Unsafe abortions represent a significant public health challenge, contributing to the country's very high maternal mortality ratio. Inspired by an internationally disseminated public health framing of unsafe abortion, the country's main policy response has been to provide post-abortion care (PAC) to avert deaths from abortion complications. Drawing on eth…
The Gavi Alliance and the ‘Gates approach’ to health system strengthening
Lauded for getting specific health issues onto national and international agendas and for their potential to improve value for money and outcomes, public-private global health initiatives (GHIs) have come to dominate global health governance. Yet, they have also been criticised for their negative impact on country health systems. In response, disease-specific GHIs have, somewhat paradoxically, appropriated the aim of health system strengthening (…
Politics and practices of global health
Over the past decade, growing recognition that weak health systems threaten global health progress has galvanised renewed global and national commitment to strengthening health systems (Hafner & Sh
Playing the Numbers Game
Based on an ethnography of the international Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI), this article charts the rise of evidence-based advocacy (EBA), a term global-level maternal health advocates have used to indicate the use of scientific evidence to bolster the SMI's authority in the global health arena. EBA represents a shift in the SMI's priorities and tactics over the past two decades, from a call to promote poor women's health on the grounds of fem…
Pragmatic politics and epistemological diversity
In recent years, the demand for cost-effective evidence of health impact has grown exponentially, often to the exclusion of other disciplines and of epidemiology's longstanding interest in the multivariate determinants of health. Drawing on an ethnography of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, this paper focuses on experts who, in producing historical case-study evidence, exceptionally inhabit a stigmatising epistemological position while still succe…
This year I will not put her to work
Global advocacy campaigns increasingly highlight the negative impact of reproductive morbidity on economic productivity and development in order to justify donor investment in maternal health. Anthropological approaches nuance such narrow economic estimations of reproductive health. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from Burkina Faso in West Africa, this paper analyses the dynamic, and sometimes contradictory, relationship between women's work an…
Capitals diminished, denied, mustered and deployed. A qualitative longitudinal study of women's four year trajectories after acute health crisis, Burkina Faso
Playing the Numbers Game
Based on an ethnography of the international Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI), this article charts the rise of evidence-based advocacy (EBA), a term global-level maternal health advocates have used to indicate the use of scientific evidence to bolster the SMI's authority in the global health arena. EBA represents a shift in the SMI's priorities and tactics over the past two decades, from a call to promote poor women's health on the grounds of fem…
Beyond body counts
Averting women's pregnancy-related death is today recognised as an international health and development priority. Maternal survival is, in this sense, a success story. There is, however, little research into what happens to the women who survive the severe obstetric complications that are the main causes of maternal mortality. This paper examines findings from repeated in-depth interviews with 64 women who survived a clinically defined 'near-miss…
Paying the price
Living Positively
Therapeutic interventions to address HIV in Africa mean that individuals are increasingly diagnosed with HIV prior to severe health crisis. This paper contributes to the anthropological literature on living with HIV by focusing on the creation and use of narrative and practical strategies for addressing HIV in a setting where such experiences have to date received little attention. Specifically, focus is on the discursive strategy of ‘living posi…
Policy, paperwork and 'postographs
Targets and indicators set at the global level are powerful tools that govern health systems in low-income countries. Skilled birth attendance at a health facility is an important indicator for monitoring maternal mortality reduction worldwide. This paper examines how health workers negotiate policy implementation through the translation of clinical care into registries and reports. It does so by analysing the links between the global policy of i…
Lives in the balance”
A decade ago, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) was established to combat the growing fragmentation of global health action into uncoordinated, issue-specific efforts. Inspired by dominant global public-private partnerships for health, the PMNCH brought together previously competing advocacy coalitions for safe motherhood and child survival and attracted support from major donors, foundations and professional bodies. …
Pragmatic politics and epistemological diversity
In recent years, the demand for cost-effective evidence of health impact has grown exponentially, often to the exclusion of other disciplines and of epidemiology's longstanding interest in the multivariate determinants of health. Drawing on an ethnography of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, this paper focuses on experts who, in producing historical case-study evidence, exceptionally inhabit a stigmatising epistemological position while still succe…
Collapsing the Vertical–Horizontal Divide
Using the international maternal health field as a case study, we draw on ethnographic research to investigate how public health researchers and policy experts are responding to tensions between vertical and horizontal approaches to health improvement. Despite nominal support for an integrative health system approach, we found that competition for funds and international recognition pushes professionals toward vertical initiatives. We also highli…
L’enchaînement de la violence familiale et conjugale. Les grossesses hors mariage et ruptures du lien social au Burkina Faso
Cet article a pour objectif l'analyse de diverses formes de violence consécutives aux ruptures biographiques associées à l'expérience obstétricale dans une trajectoire de construction identitaire féminine. Diverses situations de violence s'enchaînent alors tant dans la désaffiliation du lien parental que dans les stratégies de construction d'un projet de couple. La violence apparaît alors dans la précarité relationnelle qui affecte les liens fami…
Capitals diminished, denied, mustered and deployed. A qualitative longitudinal study of women's four year trajectories after acute health crisis, Burkina Faso
Building the nation's body
Civil society participation in global public private partnerships for health
The growth of global public-private partnerships for health has opened up new spaces for civil society participation in global health governance. Such participation is often justified by the claim that civil society organizations, because of their independence and links to communities, can help address democratic deficits in global-level decision-making processes. This article examines the notion of 'civil society engagement' within major public-…
This year I will not put her to work
Global advocacy campaigns increasingly highlight the negative impact of reproductive morbidity on economic productivity and development in order to justify donor investment in maternal health. Anthropological approaches nuance such narrow economic estimations of reproductive health. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from Burkina Faso in West Africa, this paper analyses the dynamic, and sometimes contradictory, relationship between women's work an…
Living Positively
Therapeutic interventions to address HIV in Africa mean that individuals are increasingly diagnosed with HIV prior to severe health crisis. This paper contributes to the anthropological literature on living with HIV by focusing on the creation and use of narrative and practical strategies for addressing HIV in a setting where such experiences have to date received little attention. Specifically, focus is on the discursive strategy of ‘living posi…
Béhague and Storeng Respond
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to Yeh and Brandes’s letter regarding our article.1 We are encouraged by their interest and will address their three points below. First, Yeh and Brandes are concerned that our use of opportunistic or purposive sampling, being nonsystematic and nonprobabilistic, has biased our results. However, for certain types of research questions, purposive sampling generates data of higher quality, validity, and perti…
Collapsing the Vertical–Horizontal Divide
Using the international maternal health field as a case study, we draw on ethnographic research to investigate how public health researchers and policy experts are responding to tensions between vertical and horizontal approaches to health improvement. Despite nominal support for an integrative health system approach, we found that competition for funds and international recognition pushes professionals toward vertical initiatives. We also highli…
L’enchaînement de la violence familiale et conjugale. Les grossesses hors mariage et ruptures du lien social au Burkina Faso
Cet article a pour objectif l'analyse de diverses formes de violence consécutives aux ruptures biographiques associées à l'expérience obstétricale dans une trajectoire de construction identitaire féminine. Diverses situations de violence s'enchaînent alors tant dans la désaffiliation du lien parental que dans les stratégies de construction d'un projet de couple. La violence apparaît alors dans la précarité relationnelle qui affecte les liens fami…
Paying the price
Beyond body counts
Averting women's pregnancy-related death is today recognised as an international health and development priority. Maternal survival is, in this sense, a success story. There is, however, little research into what happens to the women who survive the severe obstetric complications that are the main causes of maternal mortality. This paper examines findings from repeated in-depth interviews with 64 women who survived a clinically defined 'near-miss…
Capitals diminished, denied, mustered and deployed. A qualitative longitudinal study of women's four year trajectories after acute health crisis, Burkina Faso
Pragmatic politics and epistemological diversity
In recent years, the demand for cost-effective evidence of health impact has grown exponentially, often to the exclusion of other disciplines and of epidemiology's longstanding interest in the multivariate determinants of health. Drawing on an ethnography of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, this paper focuses on experts who, in producing historical case-study evidence, exceptionally inhabit a stigmatising epistemological position while still succe…
This year I will not put her to work
Global advocacy campaigns increasingly highlight the negative impact of reproductive morbidity on economic productivity and development in order to justify donor investment in maternal health. Anthropological approaches nuance such narrow economic estimations of reproductive health. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from Burkina Faso in West Africa, this paper analyses the dynamic, and sometimes contradictory, relationship between women's work an…
The politics of unsafe abortion in Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso, abortion is legally restricted and socially stigmatised, but also frequent. Unsafe abortions represent a significant public health challenge, contributing to the country's very high maternal mortality ratio. Inspired by an internationally disseminated public health framing of unsafe abortion, the country's main policy response has been to provide post-abortion care (PAC) to avert deaths from abortion complications. Drawing on eth…
The Gavi Alliance and the ‘Gates approach’ to health system strengthening
Lauded for getting specific health issues onto national and international agendas and for their potential to improve value for money and outcomes, public-private global health initiatives (GHIs) have come to dominate global health governance. Yet, they have also been criticised for their negative impact on country health systems. In response, disease-specific GHIs have, somewhat paradoxically, appropriated the aim of health system strengthening (…
Politics and practices of global health
Over the past decade, growing recognition that weak health systems threaten global health progress has galvanised renewed global and national commitment to strengthening health systems (Hafner & Sh
Playing the Numbers Game
Based on an ethnography of the international Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI), this article charts the rise of evidence-based advocacy (EBA), a term global-level maternal health advocates have used to indicate the use of scientific evidence to bolster the SMI's authority in the global health arena. EBA represents a shift in the SMI's priorities and tactics over the past two decades, from a call to promote poor women's health on the grounds of fem…
L'avortement volontaire au Burkina Faso
Au Burkina Faso comme dans de nombreux autres pays africains, l’avortement provoqué se caractérise par une réprobation sociale et une restriction légale. Cependant, l’avortement non médicalisé est un problème de santé publique majeur qui constitue l’une des causes principales de la mortalité maternelle. Non seulement il est dramatique pour les femmes concernées et pour les travailleurs de la santé en contact avec elles, mais les acteurs de la sph…
Guilty until proven innocent”
The MMR - maternal mortality ratio - has risen from obscurity to become a major global health indicator, even appearing as an indicator of progress towards the global Sustainable Development Goals. This has happened despite intractable challenges relating to the measurement of maternal mortality. Even after three decades of measurement innovation, maternal mortality data are widely presumed to be of poor quality, or, as one leading measurement ex…
Lives in the balance”
A decade ago, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) was established to combat the growing fragmentation of global health action into uncoordinated, issue-specific efforts. Inspired by dominant global public-private partnerships for health, the PMNCH brought together previously competing advocacy coalitions for safe motherhood and child survival and attracted support from major donors, foundations and professional bodies. …
Building the nation's body
Policy ideals and everyday politics in the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health—the role of ethnography
Behind the scenes
Global health donors increasingly embrace international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) as partners, often relying on them to conduct political advocacy in recipient countries, especially in controversial policy domains like reproductive health. Although INGOs are the primary recipients of donor funding, they are expected to work through national affiliates or counterparts to enable 'locally-led' change. Using prospective policy analysis a…
Civil society participation in global public private partnerships for health
The growth of global public-private partnerships for health has opened up new spaces for civil society participation in global health governance. Such participation is often justified by the claim that civil society organizations, because of their independence and links to communities, can help address democratic deficits in global-level decision-making processes. This article examines the notion of 'civil society engagement' within major public-…
Policy, paperwork and 'postographs
Targets and indicators set at the global level are powerful tools that govern health systems in low-income countries. Skilled birth attendance at a health facility is an important indicator for monitoring maternal mortality reduction worldwide. This paper examines how health workers negotiate policy implementation through the translation of clinical care into registries and reports. It does so by analysing the links between the global policy of i…
Covax and the many meanings of sharing
The Big Digital Contact Tracing Experiment 1
Over a third of the world’s countries have launched contact‐tracing apps in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, generating much hype about the prospect of automating contact‐tracing to manage outbreaks and to alleviate costly and labour‐intensive ‘manual’ contact tracing. Despite the stringent scientific criteria applied to the development of vaccines and other ‘biomedical countermeasures’ in responding to the pandemic, digital contact tracing has…
Digital Technology and the Political Determinants of Health Inequities
This special issue introduction makes the case for analyzing the rise of digital health technologies within global public health within the framework of political determinants of health and identifying how digital technologies impact, both positively and negatively, inequities in health. This special issue brings together diverse perspectives from academics, policy makers, practitioners and activists from around the world, most of whom participat…
Interrogating the World Bank’s role in global health knowledge production, governance, and finance
Political science (26 works) · Medicine (23 works) · Economic growth (18 works) · Global Maternal and Child Health (18 works) · Public health (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Economics (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Law (13 works) · Global health (11 works)