Document Type
Guide/Toolkit
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
For many women, emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) offer an opportunity to prevent unintended pregnancy following contraceptive method failure, rape, or unprotected sex. Access to this safe, effective option remains an essential element of women’s quality reproductive health care. However, ECPs remain inaccessible across much of the world, particularly in developing countries where limited commodity supplies, provider competency, public awareness, and misinformation routinely coalesce to restrict availability. While ECPs have been introduced on a pilot basis in many countries, their effective integration into both the public and private sectors has lagged. Successful interventions are guided by the principle that provision of ECPs is not exclusively the responsibility of government family planning programs, and so seek to mainstream delivery of ECPs by developing links with private sector providers and pharmacies, the HIV/AIDS sector, and sexual assault services. Successfully introducing ECPs into a country’s health-care system is a complex undertaking. This handbook provides comprehensive guidance to reproductive health program managers and policymakers on introducing and mainstreaming ECPs, including needs assessments and operations research, drug registration, training and logistics, and introduction of ECP scale-up.
Recommended Citation
Hossain, Sharif M.I., M.E. Khan, Ricardo Vernon, Jill Keesbury, Ian Askew, John Townsend, and Victoria Rumbold. 2009. "ECP Handbook: Introducing and Mainstreaming the Provision of Emergency Contraceptive Pills in Developing Countries." Washington, DC: Population Council.
DOI
10.31899/rh13.1013
Language
English
Project
Mainstreaming Emergency Contraception in Kenya
Included in
Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, International Public Health Commons, Medicine and Health Commons, Women's Health Commons