Ms Kristien Michielsen

Assistant Professor

Kristien Michielsen’s field of expertise is Global Sexual and Reproductive Health, with a specific focus on Sexual and Reproductive Health Behaviour, in particular of adolescents and young people.

Kristien is a trained social scientist (2001), and obtained a PhD in Social Medical Sciences from Ghent University in 2012. She has been working for ICRH since 2006, and in this period her research mainly focused on sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing of adolescents and young people, in several countries in Africa, Latin America and Europe.

Kristien’s research research experience includes both quantitative - setting up (longitudinal controlled) trials, survey development and implementation and analysis (SPSS, Stata) -, qualitative - in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, narratives, and analysis (NVivo) - and systematic literature research.

Over the past years, Kristien has been involved in multiple research projects related to adolescent sexual and reproductive health, on topics as: the formation of gender norms in early adolescence and its impact of sexual health (Global Early Adolescent Study), adherence to ARV treatment among HIV-positive adolescents in Kenya (ELIMIKA), evaluation of holistic sexuality education (European Expert Group on Sexuality Education), and a post-hoc process evaluation of a multi-component intervention to reduce teenage pregnancy in Latin America.

Kristien currently holds a position as professor at ICRH, where she is responsible for general support to the centre, guiding PhD and master students, fund acquisition, and setting out a research line on adolescent sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing. Kristien Michielsen is member of a number of national and international networks related to sexual and reproductive health.

Publications of Kristien

2019 Evaluating the effectiveness of a combined approach to improve utilization of adolescent sexual reproductive health services in Kenya : a quasi-experimental design study protocol

Peter Gichangi, Kristien Michielsen

2019 Evaluation of the ELIMIKA pilot project : improving ART adherence among HIV positive youth using an eHealth intervention in Mombasa, Kenya

Peter Gichangi, Kristien Michielsen

2019 Evaluation of a school based comprehensive sexuality education program among very young adolescents in rural Uganda

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2019 Process evaluation of a comprehensive sexuality education intervention in primary schools in South Western Uganda

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2019 Process evaluation of a comprehensive sexuality education intervention in primary schools in South Western Uganda

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2019 Adult and young women communication on sexuality : a pilot intervention in Maputo-Mozambique

Kristien Michielsen

2019 The political, research, programmatic, and social responses to adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights in the 25 years since the International Conference on Population and Development

Kristien Michielsen

2019 The state of adolescent sexual and reproductive health

Kristien Michielsen

2018 'Yeah, I've grown; I can't go out anymore' : differences in perceived risks between girls and boys entering adolescence

Sara De Meyer, Kristien Michielsen

2018 'Girls have more challenges; they need to be locked up' : a qualitative study of gender norms and the sexuality of young adolescents in Uganda

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2018 Adolescents' sexual wellbeing in Southwestern Uganda : a cross-sectional assessment of body image, self-esteem and gender equitable norms

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2018 Sexual health of very young adolescents in South Western Uganda : a cross-sectional assessment of sexual knowledge and behavior

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2018 Factors influencing abortion decision-making processes among young women

Kristien Michielsen

2017 Assessing sexual health of very young adolescents in SW Uganda

Olivier Degomme, Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2017 'A boy would be friends with boys... and a girl... with girls' : gender norms in early adolescent friendships in Egypt and Belgium

Sara De Meyer, Kristien Michielsen

2017 'Boys should have the courage to ask a girl out' : gender norms in early adolescent romantic relationships

Sara De Meyer, Kristien Michielsen

2017 Marching to a different drummer : a cross-cultural comparison of young adolescents who challenge gender norms

Sara De Meyer, Kristien Michielsen

2017 Academic network for sexual and reproductive health and rights policy (ANSER)

Olivier Degomme, Kristien Michielsen

2017 Implementation of sexuality education policies in Uganda : obstacles and challenges

Els Leye, Kristien Michielsen

2016 Uptake of the human papillomavirus vaccine in Kenya : testing the health belief model through pathway modeling on cohort data

Olivier Degomme, Kristien Michielsen, Heleen Vermandere

Projects of Kristien

Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights Sexual health and wellbeing

Improving Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health through a Participatory Parent-Child Communication Intervention in Uganda

Uganda has a very young population and its sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes - including teen-age pregnancies and HIV prevalence - remain among the poorest worldwide.

Project ongoing Read more about this project Adolescent and youth health Family planning and contraception Policy analysis

Adolescent family planning: Policy tracing for sexual and reproductive health and rights

Adolescent contraception is essential to reduce maternal mortality, which is particularly high in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, good evidence and rational arguments for providing contraceptive services to adolescents often fail to translate into national laws and policies that support contraceptive provision and use.

Project ongoing Read more about this project Adolescent and youth health Gender Sexual health and wellbeing

The Global Early Adolescent Study - A worldwide investigation into how gender norms evolve and inform a spectrum of health outcomes in adolescence

The Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS) aims at understanding the factors in early adolescence that predispose young people to subsequent sexual health risks and that conversely contribute to healthy sexuality so as to provide the information needed to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes.

Project ongoing Read more about this project HIV & AIDS Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) Adolescent and youth health Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Interpersonal violence Mother and child health Reproductive rights Family planning and contraception Gender Migrant health Policy analysis

Academic network for sexual and reproductive health and rights policy (ANSER)

Ghent University established an Academic Network for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy that aims to become a global resource for SRHR policy research, education and service delivery by establishing an international platform for research on SRHR policy related topics; by developing a portfolio of education and training programmes on SRHR policy; and by fostering interaction between SRHR researchers and policy makers.

Project ongoing Read more about this project Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights

Mitigating adverse sexual and reproductive health outcomes through a comprehensive primary school sexuality education program in South-Western Uganda

Uganda’s adolescents experience unfavourable sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes. Young people (10-24 years) constitute over 33.5% of Uganda’s population, with about 47% below the age of 15. Nevertheless, this age group carries the highest disease burden, particularly in the SRH area.

Project closed Read more about this project HIV & AIDS Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights

ELIMIKA - Adolescents and youth taking control of their HIV treatment issues, the case of Mombasa, Kenya

Globally, over 2.1 million adolescents aged 10–19 and 5 million young people aged 15–24 are living with HIV. As a result of greater availability of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, many infants born with HIV can now survive into adolescence.

Project closed Read more about this project Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights

CERCA II: A post-hoc process analysis of the CERCA intervention

The FP7-funded intervention research project CERCA (Community-Embedded Reproductive health Care for Adolescents in Latin-America) aimed to improve global knowledge about how health systems could be more responsive to the changing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of adolescents.

Project closed Read more about this project Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights

Evaluation holistic sexuality education

Holistic sexuality education (HSE) is a new concept in sexuality education (SE). Since it differs from other types of SE in a number of important respects, strategies developed for the evaluation of the latter are not necessarily applicable to HSE.

Project closed Read more about this project Other

Developing an internal strategy for science communication

Main objective: to bring and keep the scientific projects of the ICRH to the notice of the general population through the use of visual and other attractive communication methods

Project closed Read more about this project HIV & AIDS Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights

Effectiveness of HIV prevention interventions for young people in sub-Sahara Africa

To introduce HIV education on larger scale, it is necessary to know which programmes are effective in reducing sexual risk behavior in young people and which programmes generate only few results. A large problem in evaluating programs is that sexual behavior cannot be observed directly and that it is influenced by a large variety of determinants. The main objectives of this project are to development a theoretical model of the determinants of sexual risk behavious and to assess the utility and effectiveness of this model in HIV prevention programmes among children and youth in Rwanda.

Project closed Read more about this project HIV & AIDS Adolescent and youth health

HIV prevention: researching the critical success factors of peer education

During the last few years many governments and organisations have been financing and implementing HIV/AIDS prevention projects in sub-Sahara Africa. One of the methods used in HIV prevention that has known a steep upsurge is peer education. The Rwandan Red Cross, with the support of the Belgian Red Cross, has used this methods in its programmes in Rwanda. Because of the succes, the Red Cross aims to scale-up its programme. In that context, research is needed to study the critical success or failure factors of this method.

Project closed Read more about this project HIV & AIDS Adolescent and youth health

Combating HIV/AIDS in children and youth through education and training

Education and training can play a vital role in the fight against HIV/AIDS. They can inform and empower children and youth and thereby have a direct impact on the evolution of the epidemic. Education and training can as well have an impact on society, by changing social norms, fighting stigma and discrimination or triggering economic development and thereby have an indirect impact on the evolution of HIV/AIDS. At the same time, the already under resourced and overcharged education systems in sub-Saharan Africa are also affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Project closed Read more about this project Adolescent and youth health Reproductive rights Family planning and contraception

Teenage pregnancies in Kinshasa

A photo exhibition on teenage pregnancies in Kinshasa aimed at sensitizing Belgian parlementarians and the general public on problems related to sexual and reproductive health and visualises the consequences of a lack of the implementation of sexual and reproductive rights.

Project closed Read more about this project

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