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. To do this, the Reproductive Health program conducts both social science and biomedical research in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and at the Center for Biomedical Research in New York City.
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
- Through a south-to-south collaboration among our staff and government officials in South Asia, we supported the introduction of emergency contraception into the national family planning programs in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, including its expansion nationwide in Bangladesh.
- As a result of health provider education programs focused on hypertensive disorders during pregnancy and the use of magnesium sulfate treatment, our project in Kano, Nigeria, reduced the rate of maternal death due to eclampsia by 68 percent.
- We established a mechanism to provide vouchers to poor, pregnant women in Bangladesh that enabled them to access free services to manage pregnancy and delivery-related complications. This voucher program reduced inequities in access caused by poverty and increased the rate of institutional deliveries from 3 to 20 percent, antenatal care from 50 to 89 percent, and postnatal care from 10 to 59 percent.
- At our Center for Biomedical Research, we are developing ulipristal as a long-acting contraceptive to make contraceptives safer and more effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy and to contribute to breast health by arresting the potential emergence of tumor cells.
- Council scientists developed a one-year user-controlled contraceptive vaginal ring (re-usable for 13 cycles) containing the marketed hormonal product ethinyl estradiol (EE) and new chemical entity Nestorone®. The contraceptive vaginal ring was recently licensed to Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., for commercialization in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Resources
Selected publications
- The Population Council's Reproductive Health program (PDF)
Fact sheet
Publication Date: 2012 - Expanding access to long-acting reversible contraception (PDF) (PDF en français)
Fact sheet
Publication Date: 2012
- The Balanced Counseling Strategy Plus: A Toolkit for Family Planning Service Providers Working in High HIV/STI Prevalence Settings (more)
Publication date: 2012 - 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 - The Balanced Counseling Strategy: A Toolkit for Family Planning Service Providers (more)
Publication date: 2008
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
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
- Read "FP2020: A research roadmap." This brief, launched at Women Deliver 2013, proposes strategies for closing five of the most critical research gaps on the road to FP2020 by generating evidence that will inform future polices and programs. (PDF)
- Girls' migration, green contraception, and more are covered in the latest issue of Population Briefs. (PDF)
- Can vouchers help move health systems toward universal health coverage? Population Council researcher Ben Bellows participated in a Q&A following his plenary presentation at the GIC Forum on Health and Social Protection. (abstract)
- 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)
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