Dear IBP Network Colleagues,

Please see details for a Webinar showcasing the New 2022 Edition of the Family Planning Handbook for Providers!

Date: Wednesday 29 March 2023

Time: 8hEST/14hCET

REGISTER HERE

For More Information on the FP Handbook visit: https://fphandbook.org/

Nandita Thatte, DrPH

Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research

World Health Organization

Geneva, Switzerland

thatten@...

Dear IBP Network Colleagues,

Please see the updated invitation for the CSO-WHO Dialogue: Priorities on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. The event will be virtual and take place THIS FRIDAY 17 March at 14hCET.

Interpretation available in English, French and Spanish. Additional details below.

Please REGISTER HERE

Dear colleagues,

Holistic approaches have demonstrated effectiveness among first-time mothers (FTMs), who are less likely than older women to access reproductive, maternal, and newborn health (RMNH) services in many contexts, and are most likely to have closely-spaced second pregnancies. But such complex approaches have proven challenging to sustainably scale-up. Could reaching FTMs through streamlined, scalable “enhancements” to existing government platforms prove effective?

In short, yes. We are pleased to share new resources from the Connect project, which aims to develop scalable approaches to increase FTMs’ PPFP use and coverage, timing, and quality of postnatal care. Two new technical briefs detail findings from small-scale rapid surveys assessing the effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of the enhancements, to identify needed refinements, and to inform scale-up plans in Bangladesh and Tanzania. Findings from both countries indicated that the light-touch enhancements showed potential to improve outcomes and meet FTMs’ needs, despite design trade-offs for scalability. Please also read this blog post.

For more resources and information on the Connect project, please visit our page.

Best,

Meroji Sebany

ADVISOR, ADOLESCENT SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

899 North Capitol St NW, Washington, DC 20002

msebany@...

Skype: Meroji_hs

Dear colleagues,

Please join us if you can.

Best,

Sherry

Dear Colleagues

Apologies for the third link! This one should work.

https://rcog.eventsair.com/international-womens-day--tackling-stigma-in-womens-health-services/

To mark International Women’s Day 2023 the RCOG will be holding a free virtual event on 9 March from 3pm – 6pm titled ‘Tackling Stigma in Women’s Health’. The objective of this event is to open up dialogue amongst women’s health stakeholders to look at the impacts and most importantly the solutions to addressing stigma experienced in women’s health services. Please join us to share your experiences and solutions so we can tackle stigma in women’s health services.

Kind regards

Dear Colleagues

Apologies for the multiple emails, I have been made aware that the previously shared link is no longer working. Please sign up for the RCOG event using the link below

https://rcog.eventsair.com/international-womens-day---tackling-stigma-in-womens-health-services/

To mark International Women’s Day 2023 the RCOG will be holding a free virtual event on 9 March from 3pm – 6pm titled ‘Tackling Stigma in Women’s Health’. The objective of this event is to open up dialogue amongst women’s health stakeholders to look at the impacts and most importantly the solutions to addressing stigma experienced in women’s health services. Please join us to share your experiences and solutions so we can tackle stigma in women’s health services.

Kind regards,

Dear Colleagues,

To mark International Women’s Day 2023 the RCOG will be holding a free virtual event on 9 March from 3pm – 6pm titled ‘Tackling Stigma in Women’s Health’. The objective of this event is to open up dialogue amongst women’s health stakeholders to look at the impacts and most importantly the solutions to addressing stigma experienced in women’s health services. Please join us to share your experiences and solutions so we can tackle stigma in women’s health services together.

https://rcog.eventsair.com/international-womens-day---tackling-stigma-in-womens-health-services/

Many thanks,

Emma Parnham (she/her) | Programme Officer – Making Abortion Safe

Centre for Women’s Global Health

E eparnham@... | T +44 (0) 20 7772 6459

W rcog.org.uk | S @RCObsGyn

10-18 Union Street, London SE1 1SZ

Dear IBP Colleagues,

Please see information below about a Webinar Celebrating the One Year Anniversary of the WHO Abortion Care Guideline! Join us to learn how partners have used the Guideline and New Products linked to the Guideline.

Interpretation available in English, French, and Spanish.

REGISTER HERE

Access the Guideline Here: www.srhr.org/abortioncare

Dear Colleagues and Partners,

Please join us on March 14^th, 2023, from 07:00 Washington / 12:00 Geneva / 14:00 Addis Ababa for a webinar on Promoting healthy couples’ communication to improve reproductive health outcomes, the latest installment of our High Impact Practices webinar series.

Click here for the local time zone for the webinar.

What is the proven high-impact practice in family planning?

Implement interventions demonstrated to encourage couples to discuss family planning/reproductive health and make equitable, joint decisions to reach fertility intentions.

Couples’ communication is a form of interpersonal communication that entails the exchange or sharing of information, thoughts, ideas, intentions, and feelings between sexual partners. Couples’ communication is influenced by policies, attitudes, values, culture, social and gender norms, and the individual's immediate environment. There are many forms of interpersonal communication that could result in uptake of modern contraception or improved reproductive health outcomes, e.g., between woman to woman; man to man; parent to child; provider to client; provider to provider; trusted adult to adolescent.

Download the HIP brief here, and register for the webinar today. We look forward to your participation!

For more information about the HIPs and to view previous webinars, please visit: https://www.fphighimpactpractices.org/.

Twitter: #HIPs4FP and @IBP_network

Ados V. May, MPA | WHO/IBP Network | Senior Technical Advisor

m: +1 202 999 8816 |email: amay@... |www.ibpnetwork.org

Thanks, Nandita

Dear colleagues,

Following the save-the-date sent a couple months ago, I wanted to share information for registering to the online webinar being organized on “Strengthening research capacity to respond to the sexual and reproductive health needs of migrants from Venezuela and Central America” to launch the Special series relating to the call for proposals from 2019 which will be published in the Pan American Health Journal. The webinar will take place on Tuesday 7 March at 8:00h EST (GMT -5).

Please pre-register by going to this link. 

Simultaneous interpretation will be available for English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Please help us disseminate the information widely. Attached you will find a flyer in English and in Spanish.

Looking forward to seeing you all there.

Best

Vanessa

**

Dear colleagues,

In 2019, HRP, together with TDR and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in collaboration with PAHO and CEMICAMP issued a call for proposals for community based, implementation research projects responding to the mass migration crisis in the Americas. Eleven teams were funded to complete the research –acutely impacted by COVID-19—and the results of their studies will be published in a special supplement with the PAHO Journal. To this end, CLAP/PAHO will be organizing an online webinar to accompany the launch, on 7 March 2023. The launch will be in Spanish and Portuguese (we are looking into possibilities of interpretation into English for colleagues outside the region).

Details on exact time and platform used for the webinar will follow shortly, but will likely be early morning Mexico and late afternoon Geneva to accommodate to participants’ time zones.

Best

Vanessa

Dear colleagues, 

I'm pleased to share a new article supported by USAID through the MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics project on the current state of vasectomy globally: Down But Not Out: Vasectomy is Faring Poorly Almost Everywhere - We Can Do Better To Make it A True Method Option.

I’ve included the abstract below. Please share widely with your networks!

Best,
Katelyn

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

Demand for vasectomy—1 of 2 contraceptive methods for men—has been low, with deep-seated myths, misconceptions, and provider bias against it widespread. Programmatic attention and donor funding have been limited and sporadic.

Methods:

We analyzed vasectomy use in 84 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) plus the 11 high-income countries with vasectomy prevalence above 1%. These 95 countries comprise 90% of the world’s population. Data come from United Nations survey compilations, population estimates, and gender inequality rankings. We also reviewed recent articles on vasectomy and analyses of chronic challenges to vasectomy service provision.

Results:

Vasectomy use is 61% lower now than 2 decades ago. Of 922 million women using contraception worldwide, 17 million rely on vasectomy—27 million fewer than in 2001. In contrast, 219 million women use tubectomy—8 million more than in 2001. Of 84 LMICs, 7 report vasectomy prevalence above 2%. In 56 LMICs, no more than 1 in 1,000 women relies on vasectomy. Female-to-male disparities in permanent method use widened globally, from 5:1 to 13:1, and are much higher in some regions and countries (e.g., 76:1 in India). Countries with the highest vasectomy prevalence are among those with the highest gender equality and vice versa.

Conclusion:

Vasectomy use is surprisingly low globally and declining. Use remains negligible in almost all LMICs, reflecting low demand and program priority. For vasectomy to become an accessible, rights-based option, program efforts need to be holistic, ensuring an enabling environment while coordinating demand- and service-focused efforts. Vasectomy champions at all levels should be supported on a sustained basis. On the demand side, harnessing mass and social media to increase accurate knowledge and normalize vasectomy as a method and service will be particularly valuable. Evidence from Bolivia suggests relatively few trained providers and procedures could result in a country’s attaining 1% vasectomy prevalence.

Dear colleagues

Contraception is an inexpensive and cost-effective intervention, but health workforce shortages and restrictive policies on the roles of mid- and lower-level cadres limit access to effective contraceptive methods in many settings. Task sharing is envisioned to create a more rational distribution of tasks and responsibilities among cadres of health workers to improve access and cost-effectiveness.

In 2012, WHO published a document, “Optimizing health worker roles to improve access to key maternal and newborn health interventions through task shifting” https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/77764/9789241504843_eng.pdf  

It also has a chapter on recommendations of task sharing for contraceptive services: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-RHR-17.20

This new paper reviews and reports on new evidence since 2012 (WHO’s last publication) and provides updates.

Millogo T, Chomi E, Kouanda S, Ali M. Getting Up to Date with What Works: A Systematic Review on the Effectiveness and Safety of Task Sharing of Modern Methods in Family Planning Services. Biomed Res Int. 2023 Feb 7;2023:8735563. doi: 10.1155/2023/8735563. PMID: 36817856; PMCID: PMC9936454.

https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/8735563

Abstract

Objective. This systematic review was conducted to provide up-to-date evidence on the safety and effectiveness of task sharing in the delivery of modern contraceptives. 

Study Design. The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed studies that reported on effectiveness and/or safety outcomes of task sharing of any modern contraceptive method. Only Cochrane Effective Practice of Organizations of Care (EPOC) study designs were eligible, and quality assessment of the evidence was performed using the Cochrane risk of bias (RoB) tools. Meta-analyses, where possible, were carried out using Stata, and certainty of the evidence for outcomes was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation tool (GRADE). 

Results. Six studies met the inclusion criteria: five reported on self-injection of subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA-SC) compared to administered by trained health providers; and one assessed tubal ligation performed by associate clinicians compared to advanced-level associate clinicians. Self-injection improved contraceptive continuation, with no increase in unintended pregnancy and no difference in side effects compared to provider administered. In tubal ligation, the rate of adverse events, time to complete procedure, and participant satisfaction were similar among associate clinicians and advanced clinicians. 

Conclusion. The evidence suggests that self-injection of DMPA-SC and tubal ligation performed by associate clinicians are safe and effective. These findings should be complemented with the evidence on the feasibility and acceptability of task sharing of these methods. 

Thought this will be of interest to you. Feel free to share it among your networks.

Warm wishes

Moazzam

Dear IBP Colleagues and CSO Partners,

Just a reminder about the Informational Session on the WHO CSO Commission TODAY at 13h CET. Please join using the Link Below:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://who.zoom.us/j/92822280720

Meeting ID: 928 2228 0720

Passcode: CSO#WHO23