Reproductive Health

Conscientious Objection and Reproductive Health Service Delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa

Lack of access to quality reproductive health services is the main contributor to the high maternal mortality and morbidity in sub-Saharan Africa. This is partly due to a shortage of qualified and experienced health care providers. However this article explores conscientious objection amongst the available few as a hitherto undocumented potential factor influencing access to health care. [from abstract]

Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of WHO Tools: Orientation Programme on Adolescent Health for Health Care Providers and Adolescent Job Aid in India

The overall goal of this study was to evaluate whether two tools, developed to build the capacity of health workers globally to respond to their adolescent and young clients effectively and with sensitivity, improved the quality of service provision and experiences of care for reproductive health services to young female clients in two districts in India. [adapted from summary]

Integrating Family Planning and HIV/AIDS Services: Health Workforce Considerations

Governments and the global health community are increasingly paying attention to maximizing and measuring impact through service delivery integration efforts in family planning/HIV service integration. This technical brief assesses the evidence on the role of health workers in the integration of family planning and HIV services and discusses key health worker considerations when integrating these services. [from publisher]

Scale-Up of Task Shifting for Community-Based Provision of Impanon

This technical brief presents a project in Ethiopia focused on scaling-up efforts in underserved rural communities to enable access to long-acting family planning at the village level through task-shifting to Ethiopia’s health extension worker cadre. [adapted from author]

Maternal Mortality Reduction Program Assistant Training

This training program is designed for community health workers working in maternal and child health and covers topics such as family planning, reproductive health, gender violence, prevention of mother-to-child HIV among others.

Increasing Access to Family Planning (FP) and Reproductive Health (RH) Services through Task-Sharing between Community Health Workers (CHW) and Community Mid-Level Professionals in Large-Scale Public-Sector Programs

This literature review attempted to evaluate the evidence base on the use of task-shifting between community health workers and mid-level providers to increase access to family planning and reproductive health. [adapted from author]

Scaling Up Family Planning Services in Africa through Christian Health Systems: Challenges and Opportunities

This presentation introduces the Africa Christian Health Association (CHA) Platform, CHA health service coverage; challenges to family planning services; and opportunities and strategies for scaling up family planning and reproductive health services through CHA health workers. [adapted from author]

Partnerships with Faith-Based Organizations to Expand Access to Family Planning

This brief outlines collaborations with Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faith-based organizations (FBOs) to expand family planning options to underserved populations while helping FBOs increase services to their communities. [from author]

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: A Profile of Papua New Guinea

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Papua New Guinea: their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from author]

Performance Incentives for Improved Maternal Health: Experiences, Challenges, Lessons

This document analalyzes the effectiveness of performance incentive schemes in developing countries that comprise maternal health components, including family planning. [adapted from author]

Influence of the Service Delivery Environment on Family Planning Outcomes in Nigeria

This paper examined the association of the family planning service delivery environment with contraceptive outcomes among males and females in five states of Nigeria, including the impact of health worker training in family planning, and the effect of the provider-client interaction on uptake of modern methods. [adapted from abstract]

Reproductive Health Services in Malawi: An Evaluation of a Quality Improvement Intervention

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a quality improvement initiative for reproductive health providers on service qualtiy and related outcomes. [adapted from abstract]

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: A Profile of Timor-Leste

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Timor-Leste: their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at a Community Level: A Profile of Cambodia

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Cambodia; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Kenyan Family Planning Providers Leverage Local Resources to Train Their Peers on Long-Acting and Permanent Methods

This report outlines a sustainable cascade training approach to train a subset of the doctors, nurses, and clinical officers who provide long-acting and permanent methods (LA/PM) to serve as district-level LA/PM trainers. These trainers trained other doctors, nurses, and clinical officers in their districts to offer LA/PMs.

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: a Profile of Bangladesh

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working
at community level in Bangladesh; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: a Profile of the Philippines

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in the Philippines; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at a Community Level: a Profile of Vanuatu

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Vanuatu: their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice.

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health: a Profile of Indonesia

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Indonesia; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Measuring Client Satisfaction and the Quality of Family Planning Services: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Health Facilities in Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana

This analysis seeks to quantify differences in the quality of family planning (FP) services at public and private providers in three representative sub-Saharan African countries (Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana), to assess how these quality differentials impact upon FP clients’ satisfaction, and to suggest how quality improvements can improve contraceptive continuation rates.

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: A Profile of the Solomon Islands

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in the Solomon Islands: their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: a Profile of Fiji

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Fiji – their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Engaging Service Delivery Providers in Contraceptive Security

The purpose of this brief is to highlight the importance of service providers in contraceptive security and identify recommended entry points at various levels of the health system to strengthen the role of service providers in contraceptive security. [from author]

Making HRH the Centerpiece of Program Management and Improving Productivity: the Ethiopia Experience

This presentation is an overview of the Ethiopian experience in strengthening human resources for health as a strategic approach to integrate services and improve productivity for family planning. [from publisher]

Sexual and Reproductive Health Care: a Comparison of Providers and Delivery Points between the African Region and Other Regions

This supplement to “Sexual and Reproductive Health: Core Competencies in Primary Care” presents of the results of a survey to identify what sexual and reproductive health provision is offered in primary health care, the delivery points and which health workers are providing it especially relevant to the African Region. [adapted from introduction]

Role of Primary Health-Care Providers in Sexual and Reproductive Health: Results from and Intercountry Survey

This supplement to “Sexual and Reproductive Health: Core Competencies in Primary Care” presents the development, pilot study and sample of results from a survey to identify what sexual and reproductive health provision is offered in primary health care and which health workers are providing this in developing and a few developed countries. [adapted from introduction]

Sexual and Reproductive Health: Core Competencies in Primary Care

The core sexual and reproductive health (SRH) competencies that are desirable for use in primary health care (PHC) are collected together in this document. They reflect the attitudes, tasks, knowledge and skills that health personnel in PHC may need, to protect, promote and provide SRH in the community. [from publisher]

Fostering Public-Private Partnerships to Improve Access to Family Planning in Rwanda

Through public-private partnerships, the government of Rwanda can make more efficient use of public resources by targeting and meeting the needs of specific populations and thus help ensure family planning services and products will be available to all Rwandans in the long term. This report aims to inform stakeholders working to strengthen family planning through multisectoral partnerships about Rwanda’s family market.

Community-Based Access to Injectables: an Advocacy Guide

Studies and field observations have found that community health workers (CHWs) can provide injectables safely and that community access to injectables attracts new contraceptive users. This guide is designed to assist the many health professionals and advocates who are interested in making injectable contraceptives more widely available, especially for women with little or no access to health facilities. The guide describes six steps that advocates can take to support policy change to permit CHWs to provide injectables. [from summary]

Programming for Training: a Resource Package for Trainers, Program Managers, and Supervisors of Reproductive Health and Family Planning Programs

This resource package provides an overall approach to programming for training health care providers in reproductive health and family planning as well as information, methods, and tools for designing, developing, planning, implementing, and evaluating training. It also provides tools and information for strengthening training systems. [from introduction]