Reproductive Health
Focused Antenatal Care Acceptable, Tricky to
Implement
Appropriate antenatal
care is a key element of programs to improve the health of mothers and
newborns. Recently the Population Council and partners studied antenatal
care in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. These investigations showed that a
focused approach, emphasizing quality of care over quantity, is acceptable,
but can be difficult to implement because of scarce resources and staff
turnover.
Reproductive Health
Partner-Delivered Therapy Viable in Resource-Poor
Areas
In South Africa and Brazil, the Population Council has
recently studied alternative methods of notifying partners of women with
sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that they need treatment. These
studies have verified that offering women with STIs the option of
bringing medicines to their partners, rather than requiring partners to
come to the clinic, results in high treatment rates.
Experimental Programs
Expanding a Successful Health Care Initiative
What is
the best way to help institutions replace poorly functioning policies
and programs with ones that have been shown to work well? “In Ghana, we
are taking mechanisms that work for individual behavior change and
adapting them for the purpose of policy and program change within
institutions,” says Population Council demographer James F. Phillips.
Phillips and his Council colleagues are collaborating with the Ghana
Health Service to help that organization overcome the gap between
research and action.
Family Planning
Door-to-Door Delivery Enhances Women’s Status in Bangladesh
From 1978 until 1997, female family welfare
assistants in Bangladesh delivered contraceptives to women in their homes.
This service was stopped in 1997, in part because of the arguments of
observers who believed that doorstep delivery of contraceptives may
prevent improvements in women’s status by reinforcing the customs of
patriarchy and purdah, or female seclusion. Population Council
demographer James F. Phillips and his Morgan State University colleague
Mian Bazle Hossain questioned the qualitative research evidence cited to
support this change in policy and noted that other qualitative research
had demonstrated that home services enhance the status of women over time.
They conducted a large-scale statistical analysis to determine which
perspective was supported by quantitative evidence.
Reproductive Health
Investigating IUD Demand in Ghana and Guatemala
As the longest-acting method of reversible contraception available, the
intrauterine device (IUD) has long been considered one of the most
effective and cost-effective of contraceptive options. When researchers
and policymakers in Ghana and Guatemala noticed a drop in IUD use over the
past few years, they wondered why. Had the method gained a bad reputation,
were clients poorly informed, was the quality of services poor? Although
the recent teams were working separately, their findings point to the same
explanations: lack of knowledge among providers and clients, logistical
problems, and cumbersome clinic guidelines. Myths and rumors also
surrounded the method, with both providers and potential clients
misinformed about the IUD’s side effects and contraindications.
2003
Experimental Programs
Innovative Strategies Reduce Fertility in Ghana
In the early
1990s, surveys conducted in Ghana showed that people’s desire for family
planning was largely unfulfilled, despite two decades of policies aimed at
making inexpensive family planning services available. Research also
showed that mortality in remote rural areas was substantially higher than
in urban communities. In response to this situation, the Ghanaian Ministry
of Health designed the Community Health and Family Planning experiment at
its Navrongo Health Research Centre, a field station in rural northern
Ghana. The Population Council provided research support and administered
funding for this experiment. “The initial results of the experiment
suggest that in a traditional African society provision of primary health
services in the local community and intensive social mobilization can make
a difference in fertility and ideas and beliefs about reproduction” said
James F. Phillips, one of the Council investigators on the study team.
2002
Case Studies
New Book Documents Transformations in Reproductive Health Programs
Worldwide
In the eight years since the Programme of Action was issued at the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo,
how well have reproductive health and population programs addressed its
mandates? The Population Council recently published Responding to Cairo:
Case Studies of Changing Practice in Reproductive Health and Family
Planning, a book of 22 case studies evaluating this global response. The
book, coedited by Population Council researcher Nicole Haberland and
consultant Diana Measham, adds a critical new dimension of analysis to the
body of material documenting efforts to promote ICPD goals.
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