Family Planning

Women’s Empowerment and Fertility: A Review of the Literature

Ndola Prata
Ushma D. Upadhyay
Jessica D. Gipson
Mellissa Withers
Shayna Lewis
Erica J. Ciaraldi
Ashley Fraser
Megan J. Huchko
2015

Women’s empowerment has become a focal point for development efforts worldwide and there is a need for an updated, critical assessment of the existing evidence on women’s empowerment and fertility. We conducted a literature review on studies examining the relationships between women’s empowerment and several fertility-related topics. Among the 60 studies identified for this review, the majority were conducted in South Asia (n = 35) and used household decision-making as a measure of empowerment (n = 37). Overall, the vast majority of studies found some positive associations between women’s...

Women’s Limited Choice and Availability of Modern Contraception at Retail Outlets and Public-Sector Facilities in Luanda, Angola, 2012–2015

Ndola Prata
Benjamin Nieto-Andrade
Eva Fidel
Rebecca Simmons
Dana Sievers
Anya Fedorova
Suzanne Bell
Karen Weidert
2017

In Angola, many women want to use family planning but lack access to affordable and preferred methods. This article assesses the link between women’s choice and availability of contraceptive methods in Luanda, Angola, drawing on data from 3 surveys: a 2012 survey among women ages 15–49 and 2 retail surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015 among outlets and facilities offering contraceptive methods. Descriptive statistics for women’s contraceptive knowledge, use, and preferred methods were stratified by age group. We report the percentage of establishments offering different methods and...

Associations of women's position in the household and food insecurity with family planning use in Nepal

Nadia Diamond-Smith
Anita Raj
Ndola Prata
Sheri D Weiser
2017

Background: Women in Nepal have low status, especially younger women in co-resident households. Nepal also faces high levels of household food insecurity and malnutrition, and stagnation in uptake of modern family planning methods.

Objective: This study aims to understand if household structure and food insecurity interact to influence family planning use in Nepal.

Methods: Using data on married, non-pregnant women aged 15-49 with at least one child from the Nepal 2011 Demographic and Health Survey (N = 7,460), we explore the...

A film interview with Malcolm Potts

June 18, 2026
The Overpopulation Project presented a film, an interview with Malcolm Potts.

"Malcolm Potts, who died April 2025 at the age of 90, was a professor in Maternal and Child Health and holder of the Fred H. Bixby Endowed Chair in Population and Family Planning in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, USA. As physician, reproductive scientist and contraceptive evangelist, Potts spent more than half a century directing programs that provided family planning services to women in developing countries. For instance, he helped to develop and promote the device most frequently used to...

Community Health Workers as Social Marketers of Injectable Contraceptives: A Case Study from Ethiopia

Karen Weidert
Amanuel Gessessew
Suzanne Bell
Hagos Godefay
Ndola Prata
2017

Ethiopia has made notable progress in increasing awareness and knowledge of family planning and is considered a success story among funders and program planners. Yet unmet need among rural women (28.6%) is almost double that of urban women (15.5%), with a wide gap in total fertility rate depending on urban (2.6) or rural (5.5) residence. This study investigates the impact of a service delivery model that combines community-based distribution (CBD) of contraception with social marketing in Tigray, Ethiopia, to create a more sustainable approach to CBD. Between September 2011 and...

Partner Support for Family Planning and Modern Contraceptive Use in Luanda, Angola

Ndola Prata
Suzanne Bell
Ashley Fraser
Adelaide Carvalho
Isilda Neves
d Benjamin Nieto-Andrade
2017

Husband‘s/partner‘s support for family planning may influence a women‘s modern contraceptive use. Socio-demographic factors, couple communication about family planning, and fertility preferences are known to play a role in contraceptive use. We conducted logistic regression analysis to investigate the relationship between perceived husband‘s/partner‘s approval and husband‘s/partner‘s encouragement of modern contraceptive use, adjusting for socio-demographic factors and recent couple communication about family planning. We also examined mediating roles potentially played by perceived...

Women’s empowerment related to pregnancy and childbirth: introduction to special issue

Ndola Prata
Paula Tavrow
Ushma Upadhyay
2017

Empowerment is widely acknowledged as a process by which those who have been disempowered are able to increase their self-efficacy, make life-enhancing decisions, and obtain control over resources [1,2,...

Putting Consumers at the Center in a Context of Limited Choice and Availability of Modern Contraception in Luanda, Angola. Authors' Response to "Assessing Angola's Contraceptive Market Landscape"

Benjamin Nieto-Andrade
Eva Fidel
Rebecca Simmons
Dana Sievers
Anya Fedorova
Suzanne Bell
Karen Weidert
Ndola Prata
2017

We welcome the opportunity to respond to Harrison’s Letter to the Editor regarding our GHSP article “Women's Limited Choice and Availability of Modern Contraception at Retail Outlets and PublicSector Facilities in Luanda, Angola, 2012–2015.” There is little recent market data available for Angola, and this article was an effort to share what we had learned about product availability in retail outlets and public-sector facilities in Luanda. We welcome debate and hope that the gaps identified in the market will inspire others to act. Harrison makes 3 main points in her Letter to the Editor,...

Engaging Men in Family Planning: Perspectives From Married Men in Lomé, Togo

Ndola Prata
Tekou B. Koffi
Karen Weidert
Erakalaza Ouro Bitasse
Marthe Adjoko E
Mensah, Jacques Emina
Sheila Mensah
Annette Bongiovanni
2018

Family planning programs have made vast progress in many regions of sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade, but francophone West Africa is still lagging behind. More emphasis on male engagement might result in better outcomes, especially in countries with strong patriarchal societies. Few studies in francophone West Africa have examined attitudes of male involvement in family planning from the perspective of men themselves, yet this evidence is necessary for development of successful family planning projects that include men. This qualitative study, conducted in 2016, explored attitudes of...

Abortion history and its association with current use of modern contraceptive methods in Luanda, Angola

Ndola Prata
Natalie Morris
2018
Background

Women in sub-Saharan Africa often use abortion as a method of limiting their fertility and spacing births. However, it is not well understood whether having an abortion influences contraceptive behavior. The goal of this study was to examine associations between abortion history and use of a modern contraceptive method among women in Luanda, Angola.

Materials and methods

We analyzed data on 1,176 women aged 15–49 years from a 2012 cross-sectional study conducted in Luanda, Angola, which aimed to obtain general information on sexual and reproductive health indicators. The...