Yvette Efevbera, ScD

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health

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Overview

Dr. Yvette Efevbera is a strategist, scholar, and advocate working at the intersection of global health, gender equality, and adolescent girls' rights. She is the Founder and CEO of SHE Thinks Group LLC, a Pan-African, equity-centered strategy and advisory firm supporting philanthropic and social impact organizations on strategy, systems, and leadership.

Dr. Efevbera has worked across a broad ecosystem of global health, philanthropy, and development organizations, delivering board-level strategy, senior advisory support, and field-level research, and has built high-level advocacy partnerships engaging global foundations, governments, and international champions advancing girls' rights. Prior to founding SHE Thinks Group, she held strategic leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she built strategy and structure for a new adolescent girls' and gender norms team guiding a US$70M investment portfolio, launched the Child Marriage Learning Partners Consortium, and shaped the global advocacy agenda on gender-based violence data and ending child marriage.

Her commitment to centering underrepresented voices in decision-making is reflected in her past board service with the Global Health Corps and Adolescent Girls Investment Plan. She is a CQ Certified Facilitator and Intercultural Development Inventory Qualified Administrator.

Academic Appointments

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

  • Scd, Population and Reproductive Health (Adolescents and Youth, Program Leadership), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • MSc, Global Health and Population (Maternal and Child Health, Health and Human Rights), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • BA, International Relations (African Studies, International Development), Michigan State University

Honors & Awards

  • Plenary Speaker, Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine Annual Meeting (2026)
  • DC Spartans Innovator Award (2026)
  • Thought Leadership for Public Health Fellow, Boston Congress of Public Health (2023)
  • Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F-31 Diversity), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2017-2019)
  • Senior Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • McKinsey and Company Management Accelerator

Research

I research to understand, to make the work better, and to interrogate whether what we do and learn actually changes anything for the girls and communities we serve.

Dr. Efevbera's scholarship sits at the intersection of public health and gender equity research, knowledge translation, and institutional practice, examining not only what evidence shows but how organizations, systems, and training institutions use knowledge to shape decisions, programs, and emerging leaders.

Her primary areas of research include: child, early, and forced marriage (CEFMU), gender-based violence (GBV), adolescent development, women's health, and human rights globally. As an NIH-funded Principal Investigator at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she conducted mixed methods research producing foundational evidence on the drivers and consequences of child marriage in resource-constrained and fragile settings, including through field research in Conakry, Guinea. She has led and co-authored 35+ peer-reviewed and practitioner articles, publications, and policy briefs, and funded two special supplements in the Journal of Adolescent Health dedicated to ending child marriage. She has served in past advisory capacities with the UN Women Technical Advisory Group and the IHME Gender, Equity, and Human Rights Group, and contributed to WHO guidelines on preventing early pregnancy and poor reproductive outcomes.

Alongside this, Dr. Efevbera is increasingly engaged with questions of how institutions globally and in the United States translate evidence into equity-driven action and prepare practitioners and leaders for complex challenges.

Research Interests

  • Adolescent Health
  • Gendered Inequities of Health
  • Global Health
  • Health and Human Rights
  • Women's Health

Selected Publications

Efevbera, Y., Banerjee, A., and Kanbur, N. (2026). An urgent call for collective advocacy against child marriage: Advancing adolescent girls' rights and health. Adolescents, 6(1), 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/adolescents6010011

Efevbera, Y., Barral, R., Culyba, A., Kelley, M.A., Svetaz, M.V., Miller, E., Bhave, S., Kanbur, N., Stoddard, S., and Raymond-Flesch, M. (2025). Improving adolescent and young adult health through knowledge and action on gender-based violence. Journal of Adolescent Health, 76(3), 519-525. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39818653/

Noori, N., Proctor, J.L., Efevbera, Y., and Oron, A.P. (2022). The effect of adolescent pregnancy on child mortality in 46 low- and middle-income countries. BMJ Global Health, 7(5), e007681. https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/5/e007681

Efevbera, Y., Petroni, S., Hastings, M.B., Cappa, C., et al. (2021). The Child Marriage Learning Partners Consortium: Connecting data and evidence for action. Journal of Adolescent Health, 69(6), S4-S5. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00386-4/fulltext

Efevbera, Y. and Farmer, P. (2021). 'It is this which is normal': A qualitative study on girl child marriage and health in Conakry, Guinea. Social Science and Medicine, 273, 113762. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33636444/

Efevbera, Y., Haj-Ahmed, J., Lai, J., Hainsworth, G., Levy, M., Sirivansanti, N., Winnie, A., Zurak, M., and Petroni, S. (2020). Multisectoral programming for adolescent health and well-being in sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from a symposium hosted by UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Journal of Adolescent Health, 67(1), 24-25. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32448599/

Efevbera, Y. and Bhabha, J. (2020). Defining and deconstructing 'girl child marriage' and its applications to public health research. BMC Public Health, 20, 1547. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33054856/

Efevbera, Y., Bhabha, J., Farmer, P., and Fink, G. (2019). Girl child marriage, socioeconomic status, and undernutrition: Evidence from 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. BMC Medicine, 17(1), 55. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30866915/

Efevbera, Y., McCoy, D.C., Wuermli, A., and Betancourt, T. (2018). Integrating early child development and violence prevention programs: A systematic review. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2018(159), 27-54. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29537183/
Serna, A., Callahan, S., and Efevbera, Y. (2026). Partnership at the Speed of Trust. Panorama Global Knowledge Center. panoramaglobal.org/knowledge-center/articles/partnership-at-the-speed-of-trust/

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