Family Planning

Franchising of health services in low-income countries

Dominic Montagu
2002

Where do the poor go for health care? The answer may surprise you. It is not the government-sponsored public sector; it is usually the private sector. In doing so, the poor pay more for health products and services than many richer people. But, in resource-poor settings, it is often their only option.

Grouping existing providers under a franchised brand, supported by training, advertising and supplies, is a potentially important way of improving access to and assuring quality of some types of clinical medical services. While franchising has great potential to increase service...

Tsunami and the silent tide: the invisible challenge of women’s health

Martha Campbell
2005

Women suffered differentially in the tsunami disaster. While the total death toll will never be known accurately, it is known that more women and children died than men. Among the survivors it is the special needs of women that are being overlooked.

Given the rapid growth in the number of young fertile women, it is possible that more women will die from pregnancy, childbirth and abortion in the current decade than in any other in human history. With steps that we know how to take, we should be able now to roll back the silent tide of maternal death.

Published in Journal of...

Misoprostol and declining abortion-related morbidity in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: a temporal association

Suellen Miller
Tara Lehman
Martha Campbell
Anke Hemmerling
Sonia Brito Anderson
Hector Rodriguez
Wilme Vargas Gonzalez
Cordero,g Victor Calderon
2005

OBJECTIVE: To validate anecdotal reports that abortion-related complications decreased in the Dominican Republic after the introduction of misoprostol into the country.

DESIGN: Retrospective records reviews and cross-sectional surveys, interviews and focus groups.

SETTING: Family planning clinics, pharmacies, door-to-door canvassing and a tertiary care maternity hospital in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

POPULATION: Women of reproductive age in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

METHODS: Qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Individual interviews...

Gender and Relationship Differences in Condom Use Among 15-24-Year-Olds in Angola

Ndola Prata
Farnaz Vahidnia
Ashley Frase
2005

CONTEXT: The sexual behavior of young people in Angola will play a major role in the future spread of HIV, yet few young people use condoms consistently, and reported rates of condom use are low. It is important to identify determinants of condom use among Angolan adolescents and young adults.

METHODS:Data for analysis came from 1,995 sexually experienced youth aged 15–24 who participated in a 2001 knowledge, attitudes and practices survey in Luanda, Angola. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of consistent condom use by gender and determinants of...

The pill is mightier than the sword

Martha Campbell
Malcolm Potts
2006

San Francisco Chronicle: Open Forum

The Bush administration intends to cut the modest funding the United States gives to international family planning by almost one-fifth. For those of us who are interested in looking 15 to 20 years ahead, this is the dumbest action possible.

The Sept. 11 commission report is explicit: “a large, steadily increasing population of young men without any reasonable expectation of suitable or steady employment [is] a sure prescription for social turbulence.” Every day on TV, we can see that it is predominantly young men who join...

Consumer behaviour and contraceptive decisions: resolving a decades-long puzzle

Martha Campbell
2006

Introduction: Demographers’ theoretical explanations for fertility decline have been based for decades on an assumption that couples make family size decisions influenced by a changing balance between costs and benefits of childbearing, resulting in parents’ reduced demand for children. It has been widely assumed that these decisions are based on changes in social or economic factors, such as increased education, wealth or economic opportunities, or urbanisation, or other related factors in their lives. However, a number of situations in developing countries have been documented showing...

Consumer behaviour and contraceptive decisions: resolving a decades-long puzzle

Martha Campbell
2006

Introduction: Demographers’ theoretical explanations for fertility decline have been based for decades on an assumption that couples make family size decisions influenced by a changing balance between costs and benefits of childbearing, resulting in parents’ reduced demand for children. It has been widely assumed that these decisions are based on changes in social or economic factors, such as increased education, wealth or economic opportunities, or urbanisation, or other related factors in their lives. However, a number of situations in developing countries have been documented showing...

Tackling the unacceptable: Nigeria approves misoprostol for postpartum haemorrhage

Amy Jadesimi
Friday E Okonofua
2006

This article discusses the approval of misoprostol in Nigeria for the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage in 2006.

Nigeria has 2% of the world’s population, but 10% of the global burden of maternal deaths – a statistic that is described by Nigeria’s president Olusegun Obasanjo as “unacceptable and must be reversed”. In January 2006, Nigeria took an important step towards reversing this tragic situation when the Nigerian National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control approved the distribution of misoprostol for the prevention or treatment of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH...

Barriers to Fertility Regulation: A Review of the Literature

Martha Campbell
Nuriye Nalan Sahin-Hodoglugil
Malcolm Potts
2006

The evidence in the demographic and family planning literature of the range and diversity of the barriers to fertility regulation in many developing countries is reviewed in this article from a consumer perspective. Barriers are defined as the constraining factors standing between women and the realistic availability of the technologies and correct information they need in order to decide whether and when to have a child. The barriers include limited method choice, financial costs, the status of women, medical and legal restrictions, provider bias, and misinformation.

The presence...

The Pill and the blackboard

Malcolm Potts
2006

We know from our own observations and from countless studies that education is an immensely powerful driver of social change and improvement. At the level of basic health, an educated woman looks after her own health and that of her children more successfully than an uneducated woman. Education – especially the education of women – opens the door to greater wealth and hopefully greater fulfilment. The fact that the mother’s access to contraception can improve the educational opportunities of her children, as well as her health and that of her infants, is an insight we should always value....