Table of Contents
EDITORIALS
- A Tablet-Based Tool for Care During Labor+Attention to System Requirements
Evidence on using a tablet-based labor decision-support tool suggests the potential for improved practices in labor management. Further rigorous study on these tools is needed to assess the improvements in labor care and outcomes as well as the system requirements needed to achieve such improvements.
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
- Effectiveness of an Electronic Partogram: A Mixed-Method, Quasi-Experimental Study Among Skilled Birth Attendants in Kenya
Use of the electronic partogram, a digital labor-support application, is associated with improved fetal outcomes and greater use of interventions to maintain normal labor compared to the paper partograph.
- Provider-Initiated Family Planning Within HIV Services in Malawi: Did Policy Make It Into Practice?
Four years after Malawi embraced a policy of provider-initiated family planning (PIFP) within its HIV Clinical Guidelines, this policy remained largely unimplemented at the health facility level. Strengthening PIFP in Malawi’s public and private health facilities will require targeted and comprehensive systems changes.
- Realizing the “40 by 2022” Commitment From the United Nations High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End Tuberculosis: What Will It Take to Meet Rapid Diagnostic Testing Needs?
Existing rapid diagnostics offer faster and more sensitive diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and simultaneous detection of multidrug-resistant TB. A 5-fold increase in investment in these tools is needed to meet the needs of the TB community and the United Nations’ ambitious 40 million by 2022 diagnosis and treatment target.
- Standardizing Measurement of Contraceptive Use Among Unmarried Women
Because contraceptive prevalence and unmet need for family planning estimates for unmarried women vary widely depending on the chosen sexual recency inclusion factor, all data platforms should adopt a 1-month window in these calculations to have comparable and actionable estimates.
- Effects of a Peer-Led Intervention on HIV Care Continuum Outcomes Among Contacts of Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults Living With HIV in Zimbabwe
An intervention focused on children, adolescents, and young adults living with HIV using a cadre of dedicated peers—community adolescent treatment supporters—led to improvements along the HIV care cascade among their household contacts and sexual partners.
- Using Data to Keep Vaccines Cold in Kenya: Remote Temperature Monitoring With Data Review Teams for Vaccine Management
Using technology to make data visible to stakeholders and giving those stakeholders a framework for analyzing that data for decision making improves cold chain management of vaccines in Kenya.
METHODOLOGIES
- Using a Chord Diagram to Visualize Dynamics in Contraceptive Use: Bringing Data Into Practice
A chord diagram is an innovative tool that can be used to visualize switching and quitting in contraceptive use between 2 discrete time points. It complements existing analysis of contraceptive failure rates and provides a richer understanding of contraceptive discontinuation and method switching that can lead to fresh insights to improve family planning programs.
COMMENTARIES
We developed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Delivery Decision Tool to help health system decision makers identify their transport challenges and explore the potential utility and impact of UAVs on the broader health system.
Digital technologies provide opportunities for advancing sexual and reproductive health and services but also present potential risks. We propose 4 steps to reducing potential harms: (1) consider potential harms during intervention design, (2) mitigate or minimize potential harms during the design phase, (3) measure adverse outcomes during implementation, and (4) plan how to support those reporting adverse outcomes.
Currently available data on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease burden in adults and reproductive-aged women are limited. These data are critically needed to assist in the advancement of strategies related to maternal RSV vaccination for the passive protection of their newborn children.