Karan Babbar
@jgu.edu.in
Assistant Professor, OP Jindal Global University
OP Jindal Global University
Karan Babbar is currently serving as an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Business School, OP Jindal Global University. He holds a PhD from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His research areas encompass a wide range of topics, including Gender, Health Policy, Health Economics, and Development Economics. With a specific focus on Menstrual Health and Hygiene, Domestic Violence and Women Empowerment, LGBTQIA Issues, and Health and Sanitation, he actively contributes to the academic discourse in these areas.
Karan has gained valuable experience as a consultant with the Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania. He has worked as a Software Engineering Analyst for Accenture Services Private Limited. Notably, he has been honored with the Regunath Research Fellowship, acknowledging his significant contributions to the field. He has also received funding from the National Commission of Women to conduct city safety survey in Faridabad.
EDUCATION
PhD in Management
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
Development, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Economics and Econometrics
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Karan Babbar, Upasak Das, Sania Ashraf, Alex Shpenev, and Cristina Bicchieri
American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
ABSTRACT. Poor access to toilets has significant impacts on hygiene, health, safety, and well-being. Women in resource-poor areas may not use public toilets because of concerns about personal safety and the disapproval of others. This study examines social beliefs about women’s use of public toilets in India, using data from 5,052 households in rural, semi-urban, and urban slum areas of Bihar and Tamil Nadu in 2018. We asked respondents about their beliefs regarding the prevalence of young women aged 16 to 30 years using public toilets alone and whether this behavior was approved of in their community. We also asked about their personal beliefs on this issue. We used hypothetical vignettes to assess perceptions of a young woman’s behavior in different settings regarding public toilet usage by women. Our results show that people who believe many women in their community use public toilets alone and approve of it are more likely to have positive beliefs about this behavior. The experimental vignettes suggest a potential causal link between the prevalence and approval of public toilet usage among young women and their likelihood of using it. These findings are consistent across Bihar and Tamil Nadu and the three administrative regions, indicating that interventions aimed at changing social expectations about women’s use of public toilets should focus on highlighting community members’ usage and approval. Efforts to encourage woman’s access to public toilets and services should target shifting beliefs about public toilet usage among women without disapproval from others.
Karan Babbar and Supriya Garikipati
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
For over a decade, improving menstrual hygiene among poor girls and women in low-and-middle-income-countries has been a prominent global goal. Towards this, governments in the Global South have worked to promote the uptake of disposable sanitary pads. Despite this, we continue to see a high prevalence of period poverty mainly because disposable pads require monthly purchasing that may be burdensome for many women. Not only are pads financially unsustainable but also represent a heavy environmental burden which has kindled an interest in re-usable innovations like menstrual cups that present a sustainable solution. However, there is little understanding of factors that promote the take-up of disposable vs. sustainable products at population levels. In this paper, we draw on India’s National Family Health Survey-5 to understand the socio-demographic determinants of period product usage among girls and women, differentiated by their sustainability quotient. Our findings suggest that awareness of sustainable products and cultural factors are the key driver to promote their use. Women with exposure to menstrual cups either via education or mass media were more likely to use them. Belonging to urban areas and to disadvantaged social categories are other driving factors, at least partly because taboos of vaginal insertion are less of a concern among these groups. These findings suggest that improving the uptake of menstrual cups requires a paradigm shift in menstrual health policies from the promotion of disposable pads alone to spreading awareness of sustainable period choices among women via innovative use of mass media and community networks. Some micro-level evidence of change supports our conclusions.
Karan Babbar, Jennifer Martin, Pratyusha Varanasi, and Ivett Avendaño
Elsevier BV
Karan Babbar, Niharika Rustagi, and Pritha Dev
Wiley
AbstractThis paper empirically explores the impact of COVID‐19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdown on adolescent girls’ and women's access to sanitary pads in India. We have used the National Health Mission's Health Management Information System (NHM‐HMIS) data for the study, which provides data on pads' distribution on a district level. The empirical strategy used in the study exploits the variation of districts into red, orange, and green zones as announced by the Indian Government. To understand how lockdown severity impacts access to sanitary pads, we used a difference‐in‐difference (DID) empirical strategy to study sanitary pads' access in red and orange zones compared to green zones. We find clear evidence of the impact of lockdown intensity on the provision of sanitary pads, with districts with the strictest lockdown restrictions suffering the most. Our study highlights how sanitary pads distribution was overlooked during the pandemic, leaving girls and women vulnerable to managing their menstrual needs. Thus, there is a requirement for strong policy to focus on the need to keep sanitary pads as part of the essential goods to ensure the needs of the girls and women are met even in the midst of a pandemic, central to an inclusive response.
Karan Babbar, S. S. Swathysree, and Kranthi Nanduri
Informa UK Limited
Literature on the challenges faced by those who menstruate to maintain menstrual health and hygiene during a crisis like COVID-19 is still developing. To address this gap, we conducted an online survey to understand the experiences of those who menstruate during India's COVID-19 national lockdown in 2020. We conducted a secondary analysis of qualitative data from a sub-sample of the 683 Indians who menstruate aged 18 to 49 years. The survey utilised one open-ended survey question. Data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis. Over 140 individuals aged 18 to 49 were included in the analysis. The survey findings point to six themes: (a) poor menstrual health; (b) limited access to sanitary items and water, and sanitation and hygiene facilities; (c) high price of sanitary items; (d) continuing stigma surrounding menstruation; (e) lack of alternatives to sanitary items; (f) poor availability of time to rest, think and adjust. Based on the findings, we propose that government and policymakers should aim to (a) conduct workshops for those who menstruate to teach them best practices for managing their menstrual health and bring conversations around these issues to the fore; (b) improve water, sanitation and hygiene facilities; and (c) strengthen distribution mechanisms for the sanitary items via government schemes.
Karan Babbar and Pritha Dev
Informa UK Limited
Karan Babbar, Vandana, and Ashu Arora
Informa UK Limited
Vanita Singh and Karan Babbar
Elsevier BV
Jennifer Martin, Karan Babbar, and Ursula Maschette
BMJ
Access to affordable period products is not nearly enough
Karan Babbar, Jennifer Martin, Josephine Ruiz, Ateeb Ahmad Parray, and Marni Sommer
Elsevier BV