In a new opinion piece for Think Global Health, the Population Council’s Poverty, Gender and Youth Program Director, Thoai Ngo, with colleagues Charlotte Brasseux, Saleh Abbas and Mingqi Song, underscore that U.S. COVID-19 data remain fragmented and incomplete at national, state and city levels, leaving “the U.S. government, health officials and the public largely in the dark about how the coronavirus is infecting and killing people in their communities.”

In The Lancet Global Health, Eileen Yam, Deputy Director of Project SOAR and Associate II at the Population Council, along with colleagues from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine; the Antiracist Research and Policy Center and School of International Service at American University; the Ralph Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University; and the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Health in the Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles; authored a commentary calling upon their peers within the global health sector to meaningfully engage with critical race theory and move beyond a one-dimensional, “colour-blind gender lens.”

The Population Council applauds the recent executive action of the United States (U.S.) Government to rescind the Mexico City Policy, to resume funding to the United Nations Population Foundation (UNFPA), and to restore the U.S.’s relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO). These are essential steps toward advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally.  

In a Brookings Education Plus Development blog, Council Senior Associate Karen Austrian and GIRL Center Director Stephanie Psaki remind us that while the world has changed dramatically over the last 10 months due to COVID-19, it is critical that we not neglect the fundamentals and what we already know works to address gender-related barriers to education.

In a Letter to the Editor in the New York Times, James Sailer, Executive Director of the Population Council’s Center for Biomedical Research, makes the case for maintaining the intellectual property system, which rewards research and development innovation. The letter is in response to an opinion piece arguing for the suspension of intellectual property rights to improve provision of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Times of India reports on an increase in male participation in family planning, citing findings from the new National Family Health Survey, which show that condom use has increased in the past five years, while female sterilizations and oral contraceptive pill use has marginally dropped.

The Population Council celebrates the life of Elizabeth J. McCormack, one of the nation’s most influential philanthropic counselors, and long-term Trustee of the Population Council Board, who died December 4, 2020 at the age of 98.

In the Gender & COVID-19 blog, Senior Associate Chi-Chi Undie, Senior Associate Nicole Haberland, Associate II Sanyukta Mathur, Mexico Country Director Isabel Vieitez and Program Director (HIV/AIDS) Julie Pulerwitz examine how the COVID-19 pandemic unearths several important gender dimensions and implications before, during, and after data collection.

An article from SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk highlights findings from a study published in PLOS One by Council researcher Jessie Pinchoff and colleagues Deborah Balk and Carrie Mills of CUNY Institute for Demographic Research. The study used nationally representative datasets and analyses of satellite imagery to examine the relationship between women's chronic disease risk factors and increasing urbanization in Tanzania, finding that more urban environments had populations with higher body mass index and c-reactive protein, potential indicators of chronic disease and worse health outcomes.

In a recent Knowledge Success post, Council researchers and research utilization specialists highlight a set of validated tools, developed by the Evidence Project, to support governments and partners to measure quality of voluntary family planning services from clients’ perspectives.