Increase access to services; give people choices
The Population Council is part of an eight-partner consortium on the Pakistan Initiative for Mothers and Newborns (PAIMAN) project funded by USAID. PAIMAN assists the Government of Pakistan to ensure mother and newborn health. Photo: Pakistan Voluntary Health & Nutrition Association
The Population Council’s Reproductive Health program strives to improve sexual and reproductive health, especially for vulnerable people in developing countries. The relationships we have cultivated enable us to tackle sensitive issues and to give voice to those groups who are most in need.
Program objectives
- Increase access to family planning and other reproductive health services in countries with unmet need and where clients are unable to achieve their reproductive health goals.
- Reduce maternal mortality with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and vulnerable groups in other areas.
- Reduce inequalities in the use of critical reproductive health services by wealth, age, and gender groups.
- Develop and test the effectiveness and acceptability of new reproductive health technologies designed to benefit women and men in developing countries.
- Develop collaborative relationships with pharmaceutical companies to license, register, and/or manufacture technologies developed by the Council in support of increased access and choice in reproductive health programs in developing countries.
Impact
- A project we conducted in Kano, Nigeria, reduced the rate of maternal death due to eclampsia by two-thirds.
- With our partners we conducted a Phase 3 clinical trial of the one-year, Nestorone®/ethinyl estradiol contraceptive vaginal ring, which took place at 27 locations on four continents. The data are currently being analyzed. Preliminary research results suggest that the ring is as effective as oral contraceptives in preventing pregnancy when used as directed and that side effects are similar to those of existing combined hormonal methods.
- We assessed postabortion care (PAC) in francophone Africa and Tanzania and found that earlier groundwork by the Council and our partners had allowed PAC to become widely accepted and services to be decentralized and more accessible.
- With our partners, we developed and introduced the Balanced Counseling Strategy Plus: A Toolkit for Family Planning Service Providers Working in High HIV/STI Prevalence Settings, which is being used to improve counseling on family planning and prevention, detection, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections including HIV. The toolkit, developed and tested in Kenya and South Africa, was adapted from the successful Balanced Counseling Strategy, a research-proven tool for improving counseling on contraceptive methods.
- We concluded Frontiers in Reproductive Health, a 10-year program of operations research in collaboration with over 200 partner organizations in more than 40 developing countries to design innovative interventions for improving services and strengthening the capacity of local organizations to conduct operations research and use best practices emerging from the studies. The lessons learned have been synthesized and grouped into eight major legacy themes.
Resources
Selected publications
- Reproductive Health program: From product development to service delivery (PDF)
Fact sheet
Publication Date: 2010 - ECP handbook: Introducing and mainstreaming the provision of emergency contraceptive pills in developing countries (PDF)
Hossain, Sharif Mohammed Ismail; Khan, M.E.; Vernon, Ricardo; Keesbury, Jill; Askew, Ian; Townsend, John W.; Rumbold, Victoria
FRONTIERS Manual
Publication Date: 2009
- FRONTIERS Legacy Themes (more)
Publication Date: 2009
- Improving the quality of family planning and reproductive tract infection services for urban slum populations: Demand-based reproductive health commodity project (PDF)
Talukder, Md.Noorunnabi; Rob, Ubaidur; Rahman, Md. Mafizur
Publication Date: 2009 - Reference guides for health care organizations seeking accreditation for high-quality, gender-sensitive reproductive health services (more)
Riveros, Patricia; Palenque, Erica; Vernon, Ricardo; Carreño, Ignacio; Bratt, John
Publication date: 2009
Selected projects
- AIDS, Population, and Health Integrated Assistance (APHIA II) Operations Research Project (more)
APHIA II is working with local partners in Kenya to test innovative interventions that can ensure high-quality reproductive health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS and related services to better address Kenya’s health needs.
(10/2008 - 10/2011)
Kenya
Behavior change; HIV care, support, and treatment; Integrating health services; PMTCT and pediatric HIV; RTIs/STIs
- ECafrique (more)
The African Forum on Emergency Contraception, or ECafrique, is a bilingual, international network of health care and business professionals that seeks to increase the availability of high-quality emergency contraception (EC) services in Africa.
(1/2002 - ongoing)
Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, DRC, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda
Access to contraceptive methods
- Encouraging the Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) Among the Somali of Kenya (more)
The Council is conducting research in Kenya to inform the design and implementation of interventions to encourage abandonment of FGM/C.
(1/2009 - 1/2010)
Kenya
Female genital mutilation/cutting
- Experiences of Women Accessing Legal Abortion in Mexico City (more)
Council researchers conducted a qualitative study of women accessing legal abortion in Mexico City.
(9/2008 - 2/2009)
Mexico
Safe abortion
- One-year Combination Vaginal Ring, Phase 3 Study (more)
The NES/EE vaginal ring is a convenient, highly effective, easy-to-use method of pregnancy prevention for women who choose to use hormonal contraception.
(9/2005 - 6/2009)
Americas, Australia, Europe, United States
Technologies for women
What's New
- Saroj Pachauri, Population Council regional director for South and East Asia, describes challenges and opportunities to improve maternal health in India in a recent Times of India op-ed. (offsite link)
- New resource: "Comprehensive responses to gender-based violence in low-resource settings: Lessons learned from implementation" reviews the findings, lessons learned, and promising practices in the provision of comprehensive SGBV services in sub-Saharan Africa. (PDF)
- Learn more about reproductive health vouchers by visiting the RH vouchers project page and blog maintained by Council program associate Ben Bellows. (more) (offsite link)
- Population Council research indicates that family planning programs have contributed significantly to declines in fertility in developing countries. This statement is in response to misinformation that has appeared recently in print and electronic media. (more)
- The Council's efforts to reduce maternal mortality among indigenous women in Guatemala were highlighted on the PBS television show Worldfocus. The segment can be viewed on the show's Web site. (offsite link)
- FRONTIERS Legacy Themes: Results and lessons learned from ten years of operations research have been synthesized and grouped into eight major legacy themes. (more)
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