Latest Articles
- Safety and Acceptability of Community-Based Distribution of Injectable Contraceptives: A Pilot Project in Mozambique
Trained community health workers, including traditional birth attendants (TBAs), safely and effectively administered injectables in northern Mozambique; two-thirds of the women choosing injectables had never used contraception before. Including TBAs in the Ministry of Health’s recent task sharing strategy can improve rural women’s access to injectables and help meet women’s demand for contraception.
- Improving the Quality of Postabortion Care Services in Togo Increased Uptake of Contraception
The quality improvement approach applied at 5 facilities over about 1 year increased family planning counseling to postabortion clients from 31% to 91%. Of those counseled provision of a contraceptive method before discharge increased from 37% to 60%. Oral contraceptives remained the most popular method, but use of injectables and implants increased. The country-driven approach, which tended to use existing resources and minimal external support, has potential for sustainability and scale-up in Togo and application elsewhere.
- Progress in Harmonizing Tiered HIV Laboratory Systems: Challenges and Opportunities in 8 African Countries
Countries have had mixed results in adhering to laboratory instrument procurement lists, with some limiting instrument brand expansion and others experiencing substantial growth in instrument counts and brand diversity. Important challenges to advancing laboratory harmonization strategies include:
Lack of adherence to procurement policies
Lack of an effective coordinating body
Misalignment of laboratory policies, treatment guidelines, and minimum service packages
- Scheduled Follow-Up Referrals and Simple Prevention Kits Including Counseling to Improve Post-Discharge Outcomes Among Children in Uganda: A Proof-of-Concept Study
Post-hospital discharge is a vulnerable time for recurrent illness and death among children. An intervention package consisting of (1) referrals for scheduled follow-up visits, (2) discharge counseling, and (3) simple prevention items such as soap and oral rehydration salts resulted in much higher health seeking and hospital readmissions compared with historical controls.
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Trauma-Informed Support, Skills, and Psychoeducation Intervention for Survivors of Torture and Related Trauma in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq
Providing survivors of torture, imprisonment, and/or military attacks with a counseling program that includes support, skills and psychoeducation by well-trained and supervised community mental health workers can result in moderate yet meaningful improvements in depression and dysfunction.
- Intensive Group Learning and On-Site Services to Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health Among Young Adults in Liberia: A Randomized Evaluation of HealthyActions
Combining intensive group learning and provision of on-site reproductive health services through an existing alternative basic education program increased use of contraception and HIV testing and counseling among young out-of-school Liberians.
- Mentoring, Task Sharing, and Community Outreach Through the TutoratPlus Approach: Increasing Use of Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives in Senegal
Mentoring, task sharing, and community outreach at 100 rural facilities in Senegal led to an 86% increase over 6 months in the number of women choosing long-acting reversible contraceptives (from 1,552 to 2,879). Concurrent improvement of facilities and provider skills, coupled with the application of Senegal’s task-sharing policy, are increasing the range of contraceptive methods available to women throughout the country.
- Increasing Use of Postpartum Family Planning and the Postpartum IUD: Early Experiences in West and Central Africa
Competency-based training in postpartum family planning and postpartum IUD (PPIUD) service delivery of antenatal, maternity, and postnatal care providers from 5 francophone African countries generated an enthusiastic response from the providers and led to government and donor support for expansion of the approach. More than 2,000 women chose and received the PPIUD between 2014 and 2015. This model of South–South cooperation, when coupled with demand promotion, supportive supervision, and reliable collection of service outcome data, can help to expand PPIUD services in other regions as well.
- The Tupange Project in Kenya: A Multifaceted Approach to Increasing Use of Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives
Use of long-acting reversible contraceptives increased significantly among women in a poor, urban setting through training, mentoring, commodity security, quality improvement, multiple service delivery models, and multiple demand-promotion approaches.