More articles from TAKING EXCEPTION

  • Open Access
    Fertility Awareness Methods Are Not Modern Contraceptives: Defining Contraception to Reflect Our Priorities
    Kirsten Austad, Anita Chary, Alejandra Colom, Rodrigo Barillas, Danessa Luna, Cecilia Menjívar, Brent Metz, Amy Petrocy, Anne Ruch and Peter Rohloff
    Global Health: Science and Practice June 2016, 4(2):342-345; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-16-00044

    A recent article in GHSP calls for classifying fertility awareness methods as “modern contraceptives” despite their inferiority. We believe in a rights-based approach, which considers the real-world conditions that many women face, including constrained sexual agency and low baseline reproductive health literacy. We must demonstrate true commitment to increasing access to the most effective and reliable contraceptive methods.

  • Open Access
    Response to Austad: Offering a Range of Methods, Including Fertility Awareness Methods, Facilitates Method Choice
    Shawn Malarcher, Madeleine Short Fabic, Jeff Spieler, Ellen H Starbird, Clifton Kenon and Sandra Jordan
    Global Health: Science and Practice June 2016, 4(2):346-349; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-16-00115

    When selecting a contraceptive method, women and men consider various attributes in addition to effectiveness, such as side effects, return to fertility, level of medical intervention, and interference with sexual activity. Offering a range of methods, including fertility awareness methods that meet the standard to be considered modern, helps to address these considerations, facilitating method choice.

  • Open Access
    A False Dichotomy: RCTs and Their Contributions to Evidence-Based Public Health
    Laurel E Hatt, Minki Chatterji, Leslie Miles, Alison B Comfort, Benjamin W Bellows and Francis O Okello
    Global Health: Science and Practice March 2015, 3(1):138-140; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-14-00245

    Global public health should rely on those research methods that best answer the pressing questions at hand. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and other rigorous impact evaluation methods have a critical role to play in public health.

  • Open Access
    Response to “A False Dichotomy: RCTs and Their Contributions to Evidence-Based Public Health”
    James D Shelton
    Global Health: Science and Practice March 2015, 3(1):141-143; https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-15-00045

    While randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can and do make valuable contributions, they also have severe limitations, including in answering the basic question of “Does it work?” and, even more so, in steering how to proceed with complex public health programming at scale. They deserve no exalted position in the pantheon of methodologies for evidence-based public health.