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In this profile, Bass Connections Student Research Awardees Ally Carey (Psychology and Global Health ’26) and Kate Seneshen (Public Policy and Global Health ’26) share their experiences partnering with a non-profit health center in Cusco, Peru, to investigate the social determinants of adolescent pregnancy. From navigating fieldwork challenges to exploring stigma, healthcare access and sex education, their research focused on shaping future health interventions and deepening Duke’s partnerships in the region.
Ally and Kate's project was one of 14 student-directed, faculty-mentored research projects funded by Bass Connections in 2025-2026. Read more about these projects and propose your own project for next year.
“Looking back two years later, [this project] taught us immeasurable lessons in collaboration, adaptability and patience, and it brought us friends and memories we’ll never forget.”
By: Ally Carey and Kate Seneshen
This profile has been edited for length and clarity.
Each year in Peru, approximately 50,000 girls and adolescents under 19 become mothers (UNFPA Peru), and adolescent pregnancy is a recognized global public health concern that falls disproportionately on low- and middle-income countries.
Against this backdrop, we were introduced to our research mentor, Dr. Ernesto Ortiz, and community partner, VIDAWASI Peru, a nonprofit health center in Cusco’s Sacred Valley working to decentralize healthcare across the country. Dr. Ortiz and our partners at VIDAWASI identified reproductive health as an urgent area for research, providing the foundation for our collaboration.
Working with VIDAWASI’s medical director, we drafted a protocol for our study: Investigating the Social Determinants of Adolescent Pregnancy in Cusco, Peru. We planned to survey and interview 60 girls — 30 with a history of pregnancy and 30 without — exploring risk factors like education, home life, health history, access to resources, and knowledge of contraceptives and reproductive health. Although sexual health is stigmatized in rural Peru, our goal was to start the conversation and build a sustainable partnership between Duke and our Peruvian collaborators.
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After securing grants and submitting our protocol to the IRB, we travelled to Urubamba — the small town outside Cusco where VIDAWASI is based — in May 2024, detailed protocol in hand. We quickly learned that fieldwork rarely goes to plan. Unexpected IRB delays pushed recruitment back to July, more than a month into our stay. In hindsight, the delay was a blessing. As two American girls navigating a rural Peruvian town for the first time, we had a lot to learn before leading the sensitive conversations our study required. We spent those weeks immersing ourselves in the culture, the people and the local healthcare system, refining our protocol to match that reality.
With only two weeks for data collection that summer, we were fortunate to return the following year to finish the study. Through the interviews, we learned more about some of the challenges rural women navigate from adolescence to young adulthood, including stigma, healthcare inaccessibility, limited economic mobility, pervasive gender norms, and a lack of access to accurate sexual education.
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This year, we’ve focused on data analysis, presenting our findings to Duke and Peruvian partners and drafting a manuscript. We’ve also helped launch a new Duke Global Health Institute Student Research Training program through which four Duke undergraduates will travel to VIDAWASI this summer to lead intervention projects based on our findings.
As sophomores with little experience building a project like this, we never expected it to become something that defined our college experience. Looking back two years later, it taught us immeasurable lessons in collaboration, adaptability and patience, and it brought us friends and memories we’ll never forget. Duke's partnership with the Sacred Valley is only just beginning, and we can’t wait to see how it continues to grow.
May 2026