Latest Articles
- Handwashing With a Water-Efficient Tap and Low-Cost Foaming Soap: The Povu Poa “Cool Foam” System in Kenya
The new handwashing system, designed with end user input, features an economical foaming soap dispenser and a hygienic, water-efficient tap for use in household and institutional settings that lack reliable access to piped water. Cost of the soap and water needed for use is less than US$0.10 per 100 handwash uses, compared with US$0.20–$0.44 for conventional handwashing stations used in Kenya.
- Feasibility and Effectiveness of mHealth for Mobilizing Households for Indoor Residual Spraying to Prevent Malaria: A Case Study in Mali
Sending voice and/or text messages to mobilize households for spraying was more costly per structure and less effective at preparing structures than traditional door-to-door mobilization approaches supplemented with radio and town hall announcements. Challenges included:
Lack of familiarity with mobile phones and with public health mobile messaging
Lack of face-to-face communication with mobilizers, making it easier to ignore mobilization messages and preventing trust-building
Low literacy levels
Gender differentials in access to mobile phones
- Fertility Awareness Methods Are Not Modern Contraceptives: Defining Contraception to Reflect Our Priorities
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.
- Response to Austad: Offering a Range of Methods, Including Fertility Awareness Methods, Facilitates Method Choice
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.
- Declining HIV Prevalence in Parallel With Safer Sex Behaviors in Burkina Faso: Evidence From Surveillance and Population-Based Surveys
HIV prevalence among pregnant women ages 15–49 declined from 7.1% to 2.0% in urban areas between 1998 and 2014, and from 2.0% to 0.5% in rural areas between 2003 and 2014; similar declines were reported in the Demographic and Health Surveys. During the same time period, individuals reported safer sex behaviors, including delayed sexual debut and reduced number of sex partners among youth, as well as increased condom use at last sex with nonmarital partners among men and women ages 15–49.
- A Convenient Truth: Cost of Medications Need Not Be a Barrier to Hepatitis B Treatment
Drugs that are inexpensive to manufacture and simple to administer greatly expand the potential to help tens of millions of people who need treatment for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Key program implementation challenges include identifying who would benefit from antiviral medication and ensuring long-term and consistent treatment to people who feel well. The best opportunities are where health systems are advanced enough to effectively address these challenges and in settings where HIV service platforms can be leveraged. Research, innovation, and collaboration are critical to implement services most efficiently and to realize economies of scale to drive down costs of health care services, drugs, and diagnostics.
- Success Providing Postpartum Intrauterine Devices in Private-Sector Health Care Facilities in Nigeria: Factors Associated With Uptake
41% of women delivering in the social franchise private facilities chose the postpartum IUD. Factors associated with acceptance included lower education, higher parity, and being single. Scale-up of postpartum IUD services in both public and private facilities has the potential to significantly increase use of long-acting reversible contraception in Nigeria.
- Improved Childhood Diarrhea Treatment Practices in Ghana: A Pre-Post Evaluation of a Comprehensive Private-Sector Program
From 2011 to 2015, a diarrhea management program in Ghana targeting pharmaceutical suppliers, private-sector providers, and caregivers successfully increased caregiver use of oral rehydration salts (ORS) with zinc to treat diarrhea in children under 5, from 0.8% to 29.2%, and reduced antibiotic use (which is generally inappropriate for treatment of non-bloody diarrhea) from 66.2% to 38.2%.
- Partnerships for Policy Development: A Case Study From Uganda’s Costed Implementation Plan for Family Planning
The development and launch of the costed implementation plan (CIP) in Uganda was successful in many ways. However, it would have benefitted from more focus on long-term partnership development critical for executing the CIP and by including district health officers—key players in executing the plan—more substantially in the process. Using a partnership approach sets the stage for ensuring that the right people are contributing to both development and execution.