Latest Articles
- Exploring Barriers: How to Overcome Roadblocks Impeding the Provision of Postabortion Care to Young People in Togo
Before providers were trained in offering youth-friendly postabortion care (PAC), including provision of voluntary contraceptive methods, no youth PAC client chose a modern method before leaving the facility. After training, over a 6-month period 41% of youth PAC clients chose a modern method, most commonly oral contraceptive pills followed by implants and injectables.
- Postabortion Care in Humanitarian Emergencies: Improving Treatment and Reducing Recurrence
Despite the challenging environment of humanitarian emergencies, with focused programmatic attention, demand for quality postabortion care can be created and services delivered while voluntary contraceptive uptake for PAC clients can simultaneously increase substantially, even in settings where the use of contraception after abortion is often stigmatized. Greater representation of long-acting methods, as a proportion of the methods PAC clients chose, occurred in all 3 countries’ method mix, but at different rates.
- Postabortion Family Planning Progress: The Role of Donors and Health Professional Associations
Global leadership from donors and international professional associations has enabled postabortion family planning services to be scaled up worldwide through preservice education, clinical service delivery, and global health programming.
- Efficacy of a Digital Health Tool on Contraceptive Ideation and Use in Nigeria: Results of a Cluster-Randomized Control Trial
A mobile digital health tool piloted in Kaduna City, Nigeria, was efficacious in promoting positive contraceptive attitudes and encouraging women to adopt a modern contraceptive method, thus showing potential for reducing unmet need in Nigeria.
- Are Procured Quantities of Implants Adequate and Appropriate? Modeling Procurement, Inventory, and Consumption of Contraceptive Implants During Rapid Uptake
Recent rapid increases in implant procurement have not resulted in system overstocks to date. We found no standard factor for relating inventory quantities to consumption rates. Rather, that relationship requires specific understanding of the country supply chain, inventory control parameters, and current and future demand.
- Adding a Question About Method Switching to the Method Information Index Is a Better Predictor of Contraceptive Continuation
Adding the question “Were you told about the possibility of switching to another method if the method you selected was not suitable?” to the Method Information Index (MII) was associated with better contraceptive continuation. This MIIplus variable includes another domain of quality of care, and thus better reflects voluntary contraceptive use and continuation.
- Cell Phone Counseling Improves Retention of Mothers With HIV Infection in Care and Infant HIV Testing in Kisumu, Kenya: A Randomized Controlled Study
Tailored, one-on-one counseling delivered via cell phone was very effective in retaining mothers with HIV in care and in promoting infant HIV testing and antenatal and postnatal care attendance. The highest risk of loss to follow-up among women with HIV accessing PMTCT services was prior to delivery and then after infant HIV testing at 6 weeks. Challenges include continued limited access to cell phones, difficulty with reaching participants on the phone, and poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy for a substantial percentage of the population.
- The Extent to Which Performance-Based Financing Programs' Operations Manuals Reflect Rights-Based Principles: Implications for Family Planning Services
Rights principles should be prioritized and more clearly stated in performance-based financing (PBF) guidance and operational documents. Additional research, including development of validated measurement metrics, is needed to help PBF programs systematically align with rights-based approaches to health care including family planning.
- Supervision of Task-Shared Mental Health Care in Low-Resource Settings: A Commentary on Programmatic Experience
Task-shared mental health care programs in low-resource settings often incorporate supervisory structures that would be difficult to implement at scale, and many rely on foreign specialist experts as supervisors. Future programs could leverage peer supervision, technology, competency assessments/fidelity checklists, and other tools. Mental health care specialists will require training, support, and incentives to supervise generalist care providers.
- Evaluating WHO-Recommended Interventions for Preterm Birth: A Mathematical Model of the Potential Reduction of Preterm Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa
Using the Maternal and Neonatal Directed Assessment of Technology (MANDATE) model, we estimate that WHO-recommended interventions could have saved nearly 300,000 lives in 2015. Combined interventions had the greatest impact. MANDATE can allow health officials to prioritize implementation strategies.