Evidence to Action (E2A) has been reaching young first-time parents Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and Nigeria in recent years for strengthening family planning and reproductive health service delivery for girls, women, and underserved communities.
There is increasing consensus that adolescent-friendly health services—as currently implemented—are not consistently scalable nor sustainable. In an adolescent-responsive system, each building block of the health system—including public and private sectors and communities—respond to adolescent health needs.
Community health workers (CHWs) used digital health technology to advance access to family planning care at the community level. CHWs are a critical component of any strategy to bring health services closer to people. The piece calls on policy makers and technical advisors to sustain investments in the digitization of community health programs to reduce unmet need for family planning.
Despite the widely agreed importance of measuring QoC, client perspectives are often missing from routine monitoring and studies. The Evidence Project has developed a package of validated, evidence-based tools and training materials to support governments and implementing partners in measuring and monitoring QoC. Measuring QoC from the clients’ perspective will help programs celebrate successes, target areas for improvement, and ultimately improve uptake and continuation of voluntary contraceptive use.
COVID-19 is demonstrating the impact of epidemics on the continuity of care provision, particularly for FP/RH. This is why, in addition to the measures taken to fight COVID-19, we realized the importance of carrying out parallel actions that guarantee the availability and continuity of essential RMNCAH services.
The Caya Diaphragm is a new self-care product available to Nigerien women as of June 2019. Experts predict a rise in demand for self-care during the pandemic due to stay-at-home orders, strain on health systems and fear of acquiring COVID-19 in healthcare settings.
The integration of voluntary family planning and reproductive health care (FP/RH) with HIV service provision ensures FP information and services are made available to women and couples living with HIV without discrimination. Our partners at Amref Health Africa discuss the challenges of effectively addressing FP needs for vulnerable clients living in informal settlements and slum areas, and offer recommendations for reinforcing FP and HIV integration.
To mark International Self-Care Day, Population Services International and partners under the Self-Care Trailblazers Working Group are sharing a new Quality of Care Framework for Self-Care to help health systems monitor and support clients accessing health care on their own—without hindering clients’ ability to do so. Adapted from the Bruce-Jain family planning quality of care framework, the Quality of Care for Self-Care includes five domains and 41 standards that can be applied to a broad range of primary health care approaches to self-care.
The chronicle of Malawi’s rapid, efficient introduction of self-injected subcutaneous DMPA (DMPA-SC) into the method mix is a model of teamwork and coordination. Although this process typically takes about 10 years, Malawi achieved it in fewer than three. Self-injected DMPA-SC epitomizes the ideal of self-care by empowering women to learn how to inject themselves, and has the added benefit of helping clients avoid busy clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our colleagues at Amref share how the Tunza Mama network improves the socio-economic status of midwives while positively impacting the health indicators of mothers and children in Kenya.