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The Project

In Brazil, a striking majority of gender-based violence (GBV) remains uncounted and unseen. Brazilian public health systems data indicates that only 13% of GBV records come from primary care units. Mostly, the notification of suspect cases only happens when the victim is admitted to a hospital and the record fulfillment is mandatory for health professionals. 

It means the health services are missing opportunities to address violence against women earlier! 

Vital Strategies is aware of the fact that health systems can play a fundamental role in preventing and responding to gender-based violence. We partnered with FrameNet Brasil, a Natural Language Processing lab at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, to pioneer a project that combines AI and expertise in public health surveillance. 

The project uses linguistic analysis methods to read and map patterns in the open-text fields of electronic medical records filled out in health units. This information, which adds a more subjective factor to the analysis by including observations made by health professionals at the time of care, are cross-checked with other databases: violence reporting, hospitalization, and death systems.  

By identifying correlations within the data and by crossing records of the same person through different systems (using methodologies that guarantee anonymization and privacy), it is possible to identify risk factors for violence and patterns that suggest women registered in the health systems are candidate victims of violence.

The goal is to create tools for early warning and intervention that better equip health teams, local authorities and policymakers to design and apply best practices and public policies for identifying and responding to potential cases of GBV. To ensure the tools will work according to the government’s structure to assist victims with the service network, the initiative counts on the partnership with public health authorities in Brazil to build its usage protocols. 

When GBV is identified early, it is possible to ensure the root causes of the problem are addressed and the cycle of gender-based violence can be broken before it is too late.

Read more about the project:

About us

Vital Strategies believes every person should be protected by an equitable and effective public health system. We partner with governments, communities and organizations around the world to reimagine public health so that health is supported in all the places we live, work and play. The result is millions of people living longer, healthier lives.

Learn more:

For more information, please visit: vitalstrategies.org and our capability statement on Gender-Based Violence.

Contact

Email: vsbrazil@vitalstrategies.org

Meet the team

Vital Strategies

Pedro de Paula

Project leader

Country Director at Vital Strategies

Sofia Reinach

Project management and violence specialist

Senior Project Manager for Violence Prevention and Public Health Systems at Vital Strategies

Renato Teixeira

Linkage and epidemiological analysis

Technical Advisor – Data Scientist and Epidemiologist at Vital Strategies

Fatima Marinho

Gender-based violence specialist

Principal Technical Advisor at Vital Strategies

Olívia Guaranha

Project management support and violence specialist

Program Officer for Violence Prevention and Public Health Systems at Vital Strategies

Luiza Borges

Content writing and review

Institutional Communications Senior Manager at Vital Strategies

Nayme Bizaio

Content writing and review

Institutional Communications Senior Manager at Vital Strategies

 

Arthur Lorenzi

Data anonymization and AI models

PhD Candidate in Linguistics at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. Consultant at Vital Strategies Brasil

FrameNet Brasil

Tiago Torrent

Project leader

Linguist, PI at the FrameNet Brasil Lab

Lívia Dutra

Co-leader of the linguistic modeling team

Masters student in Language Technology at Gothenburg University

Fred Belcavello

Co-leader of the linguistic modeling team

Linguist, Researcher at the FrameNet Brasil Lab

Ely Matos

Database structure and Tools

Computational Linguist, Researcher at the FrameNet Brasil Lab

Marcelo Viridiano

Visual designer

Designer, PhD Candidate in Linguistics at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Lorena Tasca

Linguistic database modeling

Masters student in Linguistics at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Amanda Pestana

Linguistic database modeling

Undergraduate student researcher at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Kenneth Brown

Linguistic database modeling

Undergraduate student researcher at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Mariana Machado

Linguistic database modeling

Undergraduate student researcher at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora

Victor Herbst

Linguistic database modeling

Undergraduate student researcher at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora