Reproductive Health

This toolkit is your one-stop source for evidence-based knowledge and promising practices to support the successful integration of family planning (FP) and HIV services. It summarizes the latest evidence and provides links to guidelines and tools to help you plan, manage, deliver, evaluate, and support integrated services. [adapted from publisher]

This document describes the key effective interventions organized in packages across the continuum of care through pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, newborn care and care of the child. The packages are defined for community and/or facility levels in developing countries and provide guidance on the essential components needed to assure adequacy and quality of care. [from publisher]

This report outlines a training program for health extension workers in long-acting family planning methods in Ethiopia.

Task shifting, allowing lower-level healthcare providers to perform some of the tasks normally reserved for higher—evel providers, has been proposed as one way to overcome the health workforce shortage. Studies consistently show that task shifting in the provision of HIV services (such as distributing antiretroviral therapy) and other areas of healthcare can increase access, improve the coverage and quality of health services, and reduce the costs of providing services. [adapted form author]

Gaps in the midwifery tutors’ knowledge on comprehensive abortion care (CAC) have resulted in most midwives in Ghana not knowing the legal indications under which safe abortion care can be provided, and lacking the skills and competencies for CAC services. The aim of this study is to assess the capacity and willingness of midwifery tutors to teach contraception, post abortion care and legal termination in Ghana. [from abstract]

In 2008, Malawi piloted the distribution of depo-medroxy progesterone acetate (DMPA), an injectable contraceptive, to the community by Health Surveillance Assistants. This report presents lessons learned during the initial implementation, from gaining stakeholder buy-in to curriculum development, and the initial three months after the training and implementation roll-out. [from abstract]

In direct response to the country’s human resources for health needs, the Capacity Project helped to develop the capacity of the district hospital clinical workforce to expand access to a full range of quality family planning methods through a pilot vasectomy in-service training program for physicians and nurses at two district hospitals. [adapted from introduction]

This technical brief describes several approaches used to achieve needed changes in reproductive health service delivery practice, and provides recommendations for actions at the local level. [from introduction]

This paper supports the promotion of appropriate standards and practices to ensure quality in FP/RH services at the local level. It argues that investments in written updates of FP/RH norms and standards and their dissemination must be complemented with innovative organizational and management systems strengthening to ensure their use in low-resource settings. [adapted from introduction]

This study evaluates the impact and sustainability of a competitive voucher program on the quality of reproductive health care for poor and underserved female adolescents and the usefulness of the simulated patient method for such evaluation. [from abstract]

This manual is designed to enable community health educators to incorporate activities related to constructive men’s engagement in reproductive health in their daily work. This includes promoting dialogue among men and women to increase couple communication and shared decisionmaking related to family planning and reproductive health. [from introduction]

This report presents research findings on the potential for making contraceptives, and in particular injectable contraceptives, widely available through using a community-based distribution approach which would expand the cadre of providers authorized to provide contraceptives to include health surveillance assistants and community-based distribution agents. [adapted from summary]

The objective of this article was to determine the current practices of private practitioners for the management of STIs in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, evaluation of pharmacotherapy for STIs in private clinics and to ascertain the management of STIs compared to standard guidelines. [from author]

Because of increased demand for injectable contraception coupled with an overburdened clinical health system, countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have recently expanded the use of non-clinic based approaches in providing this method. In this first review of the available evidence of these efforts, this consultation concluded that there is sufficient evidence to support expansion of community-based health workers providing progestin-only injectable contraceptives, especially DMPA. [from author]

Many developing countries face strains in meeting the demands for provision of health services because of limited medical personnel. This has led to renewed interest in task sharing, also known as task shifting. A key feature of task sharing is that those with less medical or paramedical training can provide some of the same services with the same quality as those with more training. [from author]

The Capacity Project offered technical support to Rwanda’s Ministry of Health to develop the capacity of the district hospital clinical workforce in order to expand client access to a full range of quality FP methods. These included long-acting and permanent methods and vasectomy in particular. [from author]

Obstetricians, gynaecologists, family physicians, midwives, nurses, and other reproductive health care providers, along with their professional associations, are on the front lines to promote and to protect women’s reproductive health and rights through the clinical services they already provide. Health professionals are also well positioned to address the root causes of many of these problems: inequality, discrimination, and a lack of respect for sexual and reproductive rights. [from introduction]

This two-year study to assessed the usefulness and effectiveness of using paraprofessionals in educating and providing emergency contraceptive pill services to potential users. [from summary]

This study was undertaken primarily to understand what effect the efforts to integrate family planning and VCT services in health facilities had on health care providers’ work and service delivery practices in two regions of Ethiopia. [from summary]

This study tested the feasibility, acceptability, and cost of two models for integrating HIV prevention services, including counseling and testing, within established family planning programs, and evaluated their quality against the standard practice. [from author]

A postabortion care program was implemented in 11 primary and secondary health facilities in rural Tanzania in order to decentralize comprehensive postabortion care to community level by upgrading midlevel providers to perform manual vacuum aspiration. [from abstract]

This document details the results of a study to determine whether a quality improvement package designed to enable small-scale commercial reproductive health service providers to improve the quality of services provided through self-assessment, action-planning, and supervisors’ support is effective in improving service quality. [adapted from sbatract]

The GO Tool is a comprehensive resource connecting health professions students to domestic and international reproductive health training opportunities. [from author]

CORE is an open access, cutting edge tool for building presentations on the full spectrum of reproductive health topics. It has sample slides for easy insertion into a presentation that users can download as well as fact sheets, activities, studies and other resources. [adapted from publisher]

This brief discusses the important role of reproductive health providers in reducing the incidence of new HIV infections over the coming years through an increased focus on outreach to young people and men. [adapted from introduction]

An estimated four million deaths occur annually among children in the neonatal period. Current evidence-based interventions could prevent a large proportion of these deaths; however, neonatal health care workers need to have knowledge regarding such practices before being able to put them into action. This survey assesses the knowledge of primary health care practitioners regarding basic, evidence-based procedures in neonatal care in a Vietnamese province and investigates whether differences in level of knowledge were linked to certain characteristics of community health centers.

This report is the result of a rapid assessment conducted to better understand the current and potential market for family planning products and services in the private health sector in Senegal, as well as to provide recommendations to strengthen the private health sector. [adapted from executive summary]

This video resource shows that despite the awareness advancement regarding reproductive health, women in Jordan still bear the burden of their health alone. This is especially true in rural areas; however, despite social criticism, men have decided to stand by their wives. [adapted from synopsis]

This video resource chronicles how after a truce in Nepal's civil war, a mobile reproductive health team is reaching isolated communities that have had no health services for years. [adapted from synopsis]

The objective of this adaptable tool is to assess HIV and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) bi-directional linkages at the policy, systems and service-delivery levels. It is intended also to identify gaps, and ultimately contribute to the development of country-specific action plans to forge and strengthen these linkages. It includes assement tools for evaluating staffing, human resources and capacity development (p.32) as well as a checklist for evaluating health workers’ capacity to perform SRH and HIV functions (p.82). [adapted from author]