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.
Quality of Care
Improving Provider–Client Interactions in the Philippines
At a Population Council workshop, program managers and researchers from the Davao del Norte province of the Philippines stated that a large proportion of family planning clients in their region discontinued contraceptive use. They identified inadequate dialogue between clinician and client as a key source of this behavior. As part of the Population Council’s Impact Studies project researchers looked at ways to enhance provider communication skills in the Philippines. Council researchers assessed the effects of these interventions by comparing experimental clinics with control clinics.
Reproductive Health
Maternal Deaths in the Dominican Republic Analyzed
In the Dominican Republic, 94 percent of women obtain prenatal care and 97 percent deliver in hospitals, conditions that generally bode well for maternal health. Why then, researchers asked, is the country’s maternal mortality rate so high, estimated at as many as 229 deaths per 100,000 live births? In the United States, the rate is 7.7 deaths per 100,000 live births. After forming a multidisciplinary assessment team and analyzing the country’s national reproductive health care program, Population Council researchers and colleagues in the Dominican Republic identified the answer: a lack of high-quality care in maternity wards.
Biomedical Research
Altering Cell Bonds in Testis May Yield Contraceptive
The development of effective, reversible, and safe contraceptives for men has lagged far behind the availability of methods for women, largely because scientists lack sufficient knowledge about male reproductive physiology. In one of the Council’s biomedical labs, biochemist and cell biologist C. Yan Cheng and his colleagues have made significant progress in understanding a process that is essential to the formation and development of sperm. Drawing on this knowledge, the team is developing compounds that may eventually be used as new male contraceptive methods. If successful, the methods would induce reversible infertility without interfering with hormones secreted by the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and testis.
Social Effects
Friends Strongly Influence Contraceptive Use in Ghana
Population Council researchers are exploring the theory that behaviors related to contraceptive practices can be contagious. Like viruses, ideas and practices vary in their “infectiousness.” Under the right circumstances, people may adopt certain attitudes and behaviors after exposure to only one or two people exhibiting them. Other ideas and behaviors may be much less infectious. Population Council researchers John B. Casterline, Paul C. Hewett, and Mark R. Montgomery collaborated with scientists at the University of Cape Coast in southern Ghana and other Council investigators to explore contraceptive use as a form of social contagion. They recently published their first analysis of data from this study.
Demography
Demographic Change and Regional Affiliations in East Asia
Although most research on regionalization lies within political science, significant demographic influences on the process warrant examination. Recently, Population Council demographer Geoffrey McNicoll explored these influences in the East Asian case—examining how population change is affecting the emergence of Asian regional affiliations and identities, from simple trade pacts to deeper levels of economic and even cultural integration.
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