PPOC Grant Supports Tulane Researcher Margaret Mary Downey in Developing Women’s Health Decision-Making App
Women’s healthcare rarely follows a straight path, and no two women experience it the same way. Some might be planning their first pregnancy in their 40s, others may be managing contraception after having a child in their 20s, while some are exploring reproductive health options for the first time. Relationships, finances, family responsibilities, and personal passions influence these decisions.
The fast pace of modern life can also push personal health to the back burner. Unlike the past, when traditional, narrow expectations defined a woman’s health journey, today women seek tools that reflect their unique circumstances and life stages. However, most digital solutions—period trackers, fertility apps, symptom monitors—focus on biology, overlooking the broader social, medical, financial, and policy factors that influence real-world decisions.
Tulane School of Social Work assistant professor and former birth doula Margaret Mary Downey, PhD, MSW, aims to develop a tool that better helps women navigate complex decisions. Supported by the Tulane Innovation Institute’s Provost’s Proof of Concept (PPOC) Fund, she is creating The Journey, an AI-powered app centered on contraception, fertility, and pregnancy planning. Unlike typical apps, The Journey combines personal health data with external factors such as insurance coverage, state policy changes, and economic conditions, offering guidance that considers the full context of each user’s life.
“For too long, digital tools have treated reproductive health as a straight line,” Downey says. “In reality, women balance evolving considerations from adolescence through adulthood. The Journey reflects that complexity, offering guidance tailored to individual circumstances.”
Privacy remains a key focus in the development of the app's technology. Federated learning keeps sensitive health data on personal devices while learning from anonymized patterns to enhance recommendations. A woman exploring a new birth control method will see clinical effectiveness rates alongside potential coverage limitations, costs, and policy impacts—information that helps her make decisions aligned with her priorities.
Downey’s work builds on years of research into how social, structural, and economic factors influence reproductive health choices. With PPOC support, this research is now transitioning from academic insight to a market-ready tool, showcasing Tulane’s commitment to supporting innovation across disciplines.
“We are proud to support Margaret Downey’s work,” says Clay Christian, PhD, Executive Director of Commercialization at the Tulane Innovation Institute. “PPOC funding is meant for all of Tulane’s schools to leverage. Faculty in social work, architecture, law, and the liberal arts along with those in medicine, public health, and science & engineering can turn research into tools that make a real difference. We encourage anyone with a strong idea to apply.”
Downey’s entrepreneurial path has also led to her recent appointment as the Paul Tudor Jones II Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Tulane’s Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking. In this role, Downey will guide students in applying interdisciplinary research to their social innovations and ideas.
“The PPOC grant is allowing me to learn how to discover how my academic research can have a tangible impact,” Downey said. “At the same time, working with students at the Taylor Center will give me the chance to help their healthcare ideas take shape in meaningful ways.”
Downey’s entrepreneurial work with The Journey reflects the core idea of her app: turning research into real-world impact can take many forms—different timelines, funding routes, educational tools, and ways to test and improve solutions. From academia to innovation, the Tulane Innovation Institute is providing researchers across disciplines with the resources to transform ideas into tangible benefits for those who need them most.
