Edited by:
Dr. Priyanka Garg, MBBS, MD, MNAMS, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India
Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 28 February 2025
Contraception and Reproductive Medicine is calling for submissions to our Collection on Contraceptive Decision-Making: Enhancing Family Planning Education and Accessibility. Target 3.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls on countries to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programs by 2030. However, the unmet need for family planning remains the bottleneck in realizing these goals. The prevalence of unmet needs is high globally and more concerning in low-middle-income countries, calling for implementing better strategies. Family planning employs decision-making as a major component of reproductive health services. It is a woman`s ability to independently decide on the method she wants to use by successfully overcoming several barriers around her. Decision-making largely depends on awareness of the benefits of various family planning methods, their accessibility and affordability, and their pros and cons.
Until recently, contraceptive decision-making has received inadequate attention because the stakeholders' focus has largely been on the availability, accessibility, and utilization of the methods, as manifested by the primary health declarations in low- and middle-income countries. However, reproductive health services have received global attention regarding policy articulation, program design and implementation, and monitoring activities guided by robust evidence generated through research. More focus is now given to improving education and accessibility of family planning methods simultaneously. Various strategies for reaching informed decisions include comprehensive health advocacy, starting from sex education campaigns in schools and communities to post-natal services supplemented by the widespread availability of contraceptive methods across all healthcare centers and making them affordable through free government supplies and social marketing. Extra emphasis is given to involving male counterparts to foster shared responsibility for reproductive health and boost support for contraception within families and communities. The use of technology and creativity to increase access to contraception, like telemedicine for distant consultations and mobile health apps for information and tracking, are also being tested. Lastly, the role of customizing family planning education and services to be culturally sensitive and respect one’s beliefs and values cannot be negated. This can be achieved through the engagement of community leaders and religious organizations to address cultural taboos and misconceptions about contraception. By employing these measures, we can improve family planning education and accessibility, allowing people to make informed decisions about their reproductive health and attain their ideal family size. Based on this background, the current collection encourages the submission of manuscripts (original articles, review articles) that aim at sexual health education, determinants of contraceptive use, access to contraceptive use in resource-poor countries and the role of men in family planning decisions to further our efforts in this regard.
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This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3 & SDG 5: Good health and well-being & Gender equality.