Health Topics
- End Malaria Faster: Taking Lifesaving Tools Beyond “Access” to “Reach” All People in Need
To “reach the unreached” with preventive and curative malaria services, we must know which individuals and communities remain unreached and then bring tailored services from the clinic to the community and home.
- A Comprehensive Approach to Improving Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care in Kigoma, Tanzania
Efforts to increase the availability and utilization of high-quality emergency obstetric and newborn care and routine delivery care services in Kigoma were successful and subsequently contributed to significant reductions in maternal and perinatal mortality in the region.
- Using a Rapid Knowledge Translation Approach for Better Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Bangladesh, Burundi, Indonesia, and Jordan
There is a growing need for approaches to support rapid knowledge translation processes that can create changes in policy and practice and that can apply to different country contexts. The collaborative rapid improvement model for knowledge translation in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) implemented in 4 countries improved SRHR practice and policies.
- Let's Talk About Sex: Improving Measurement of Contraceptive Use in Cross-Sectional Surveys by Accounting for Sexual Activity Recency
Findings suggest that the contraceptive use of unmarried women and those who were not recently sexually active are less likely to be captured in standard measures of current contraceptive use. Incorporating information from questions about contraceptive use at last sex may better capture coital-dependent method use and provide a more accurate assessment of who is protected against an unintended pregnancy at next sex.
- Baseline Assessment of Evidence-Based Intrapartum Care Practices in Medical Schools in 3 States in India: A Mixed-Methods Study
The study findings have identified significant gaps between current intrapartum care practices and recommended national and international guidelines in the medical schools of 3 states in India.
- Lessons Learned From the Use of the Most Significant Change Technique for Adaptive Management of Complex Health Interventions
The Most Significant Change technique used in monitoring and evaluation has facilitated learning about the project scale-up and adaptive management of evidence-based family planning interventions across diverse project stakeholders in 11 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
- What Distinguishes Women Who Choose to Self-Inject? A Prospective Cohort Study of Subcutaneous Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate Users in Ghana
Family planning projects and programs seeking to introduce, scale up, or market subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate self-injection should first focus efforts on new family planning users, those never married, and those with at least a high school education level.
- A New Contraceptive Diaphragm in Niamey, Niger: A Mixed Methods Study on Acceptability, Use, and Programmatic Considerations
Through a pilot introduction in Niamey, Niger, we found that expanding method options to include the Caya diaphragm, a new self-care contraceptive product without side effects for most users, may address some of the challenges that contribute to very low contraceptive use.
- What Do We Demand? Responding to the Call for Precision and Definitional Agreement in Family Planning’s “Demand” and “Need” Jargon
This commentary offers a response to the call to improve family planning language that describes “need” and “demand” and proposes a set of recommendations to add precision, improve measurement, and foster shared understanding in family planning.
- COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy
Improving access to accurate information on vaccines and vaccination, increasing trust in reliable information sources, and counteracting misinformation can go a long way toward improving vaccination decision making.