How gender and religion impact uptake of family planning: results from a qualitative study in Northwestern Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Women in Tanzania report a high unmet need for both information about and access to family planning. Prior studies have demonstrated the complex and variable relationship between religious faith and beliefs about family planning in sub-Saharan Africa. We hypothesized that a major reason for the poor uptake of family planning in Tanzania is that women and their partners are uncertain about whether pregnancy prevention is compatible with their religious beliefs. METHODS: Twenty-four focus group discussions with 206 participants were conducted in Mwanza, Tanzania between 2016 and 2017: six groups were conducted among Christian men, six among Christian women, six among Muslim men, and six among Muslim women. Among Christians, 98% were Protestants. Focus groups were also divided by gender and religion to facilitate discussion about gender-specific and religion-specific factors influencing family planning utilization. Qualitative data were analyzed using a thematic, phenomenological approach. RESULTS: We identify two important themes regarding the intersections of religion and family planning practices. First, we report that dynamics of family planning are experienced differently based on gender, and that male authority conflicts with female embodied knowledge, leading to negotiation or covert contraceptive use. Second, religious acceptability of family planning methods is of central importance, though participants differed in their interpretations of their religion's stance on this question. Most who found family planning incompatible with their faith affirmed their responsibility to give birth to as many children as God would give them. Others found family planning to be acceptable given their moral responsibility to care for and protect their children by limiting the family size. CONCLUSIONS: Both religious tradition and gender dynamics strongly influence the uptake of family planning, with a wide range of interpretations of religious traditions affecting the perceived acceptability of family planning. Regardless of gender or religious affiliation, participants were unified by a desire to live according to religious tradition. Future efforts to improve uptake of family planning are likely to have maximal impact if they are tailored to inform, involve, and empower male heads of households, and to address questions of religious acceptability.

Educating religious leaders to promote uptake of male circumcision in Tanzania: a cluster randomised trial.

BACKGROUND: Male circumcision is being widely deployed as an HIV prevention strategy in countries with high HIV incidence, but its uptake in sub-Saharan Africa has been below targets. We did a study to establish whether educating religious leaders about male circumcision would increase uptake in their village. METHODS: In this cluster randomised trial in northwest Tanzania, eligible villages were paired by proximity (<60 km) and the time that a free male circumcision outreach campaign from the Tanzanian Ministry of Health became available in their village. All villages received the standard male circumcision outreach activities provided by the Ministry of Health. Within the village pairs, villages were randomly assigned by coin toss to receive either additional education for Christian church leaders on scientific, religious, and cultural aspects of male circumcision (intervention group), or standard outreach only (control group). Church leaders or their congregations were not masked to random assignment. The educational intervention consisted of a 1-day seminar co-taught by a Tanzanian pastor and a Tanzanian clinician who worked with the Ministry of Health, and meetings with the study team every 2 weeks thereafter, for the duration of the circumcision campaign. The primary outcome was the proportion of male individuals in a village who were circumcised during the campaign, using an intention-to-treat analysis that included all men in the village. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT 02167776. FINDINGS: Between June 15, 2014, and Dec 10, 2015, we provided education for church leaders in eight intervention villages and compared the outcomes with those in eight control villages. In the intervention villages, 52·8% (30 889 of 58 536) of men were circumcised compared with 29·5% (25 484 of 86 492) of men in the eight control villages (odds ratio 3·2 [95% CI, 1·4-7·3]; p=0·006). INTERPRETATION: Education of religious leaders had a substantial effect on uptake of male circumcision, and should be considered as part of male circumcision programmes in other sub-Saharan African countries. This study was conducted in one region in Tanzania; however, we believe that our intervention is generalisable. We equipped church leaders with knowledge and tools, and ultimately each leader established the most culturally-appropriate way to promote male circumcision. Therefore, we think that the process of working through religious leaders can serve as an innovative model to promote healthy behaviour, leading to HIV prevention and other clinically relevant outcomes, in a variety of settings. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Mulago Foundation.

Perspectives of Muslim Religious Leaders to Shape an Educational Intervention About Family Planning in Rural Tanzania: A Qualitative Study.

INTRODUCTION: Uptake of effective contraceptive methods can be hindered by poor understanding and uncertainty about its compatibility with religious beliefs. We sought to understand the perspectives of Muslim religious leaders in rural Tanzania on family planning (FP) and acceptable strategies for providing FP education to leaders and their communities. METHODS: We conducted in-depth interviews with Muslim leaders from 4 communities in northwest Tanzania. Open-ended questions explored leaders' views on FP in relation to their communities, Muslim texts and teaching, and their experience as leaders. We also investigated how FP education could be provided in their communities and asked practical questions regarding seminar implementation. Interviews were conducted in Kiswahili and transcribed and translated into English. Data were coded independently by 2 investigators using NVivo 1.5.1 and analyzed thematically. RESULTS: We interviewed 17 male and 15 female Muslim leaders. All leaders supported FP as a concept in which births are spaced, interpreting this as espoused by the Qur'an and a basic right of children raised in Islam. Leaders uniformly endorsed the use of breastfeeding and the calendar method to space births but had divergent and sometimes opposing views on other methods, including condom use, oral contraceptives, and intrauterine devices. All leaders acknowledged the need for FP education among their congregants and were in favor of helping to teach an FP seminar in their communities. CONCLUSION: Our data reveal insights into how education for Muslim leaders may equip them to promote birth spacing and enhance understanding of FP in their communities in ways that are concordant with Islamic teaching. Our findings will guide the design and pilot-testing of an educational intervention for Muslim religious leaders to promote knowledge and uptake of FP in rural Tanzania.

Partnerships with religious leaders to promote family planning in rural Tanzania: an open-label, cluster randomised trial.

BACKGROUND: Family planning benefits maternal-child health, education, and economic wellbeing. Despite global efforts, an unsatisfied demand for family planning persists in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on previous successful partnerships, the aim of this study was to determine whether an educational intervention for religious leaders would increase community knowledge, demand for, and ultimately uptake of family planning. METHODS: In this open-label, cluster randomised trial in Tanzania, 24 communities were randomised (1:1) to intervention or control arm. Communities, defined as the catchment area of a single public health facility, were eligible if they were at least 15 km from Mwanza City and had not previously participated in a health intervention for religious leaders. Random allocations were determined by coin toss and were not revealed to clinicians at health facilities in intervention and control communities, nor to the data entry team; however, due to the nature of the intervention, masking of religious leaders in the intervention communities was not possible. All Christian religious institutions were invited to send four leaders to an educational intervention that incorporated cultural, theological, and medical teaching about family planning. The primary outcome was contraceptive uptake at the community health facility during the year post intervention versus the year before the intervention. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov, NCT03594305. FINDINGS: 75 communities in three districts were assessed for eligibility. 19 communities were excluded and 56 were eligible for study inclusion and were placed in random order to be invited to participate. The first 24 communities that were invited agreed to participate and were randomly assigned to receive the educational intervention either during the trial or after trial completion. Between July 10, 2018 and Dec 11, 2021, we provided the intervention in 12 communities and compared contraceptive uptake with 12 control communities. All were followed up for 12 months. In intervention communities, contraceptive uptake increased by a factor of 1·47 (95% CI 1·41-1·53) in the post-intervention (prospective) versus pre-intervention (historical) year (geometric mean of contraceptive uptake, 466 in the prospective year vs 312 in the historical year), versus 1·24 (95% CI 1·20-1·29) in control communities (geometric mean, 521 in the prospective year vs 429 in the historical year). The rate of change in contraceptive uptake was greater in intervention communities (between-group ratio of geometric mean ratios over time, 1·19 [95% CI 1·12-1·25]; p<0·0001). The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with decreased contraceptive uptake (geometric mean, 365 during the pandemic in communities that had the majority of their prospective 12-month data collection periods occur after March 16, 2020, vs 494 before the pandemic; geometric mean ratio, 0·72 [95% CI 0·57-0·90]; p=0·0040). INTERPRETATION: This intervention offers a scalable model, leveraging influence of trusted religious leaders to increase knowledge and uptake of family planning. New strategies such as this could help to overcome setbacks that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. FUNDING: John Templeton Foundation and Weill Cornell Medicine Dean's Diversity and Healthcare Disparity Award. TRANSLATION: For the Kiswahili translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.

'The body we leave behind': a qualitative study of obstacles and opportunities for increasing uptake of male circumcision among Tanzanian Christians.

OBJECTIVES: Male circumcision (MC) reduces HIV infection by approximately 60% among heterosexual men and is recommended by the WHO for HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. In northwest Tanzania, over 60% of Muslims but less than 25% of Christian men are circumcised. We hypothesised that the decision to circumcise may be heavily influenced by religious identity and that specific religious beliefs may offer both obstacles and opportunities to increasing MC uptake, and conducted focus group discussions to explore reasons for low rates of MC among Christian church attenders in the region. DESIGN: Qualitative study using focus group discussions and interpretative phenomenological analysis. SETTING: Discussions took place at churches in both rural and urban areas of the Mwanza region of northwest Tanzania. PARTICIPANTS: We included 67 adult Christian churchgoers of both genders in a total of 10 single-gender focus groups. RESULTS: Christians frequently reported perceiving MC as a Muslim practice, as a practice for the sexually promiscuous, or as unnecessary since they are taught to focus on 'circumcision of the heart'. Only one person had ever heard MC discussed at church, but nearly all Christian parishioners were eager for their churches to address MC and felt that MC could be consistent with their faith. CONCLUSIONS: Christian religious beliefs among Tanzanian churchgoers provide both obstacles and opportunities for increasing uptake of MC. Since half of adults in sub-Saharan Africa identify themselves as Christians, addressing these issues is critical for MC efforts in this region.

Timeliness of appropriate antibiotics in hand infections.

We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 110 patients to determine if there was a difference in the time to appropriate antibiotic treatment between methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and non-MRSA hand infections. Patients were included in the study only if they had a culture-positive hand infection and received antibiotic treatment. Thirty-two patients (18 male and 14 female) with an average age of 39.1 years (range, 6 months-72 years) met the inclusion criteria. We recorded patient age, gender, date of presentation, time to receiving any antibiotic, time to final culture results, and time to receiving culture-appropriate antibiotics. The overall prevalence of MRSA infection was 34%. When compared to those with non-MRSA infections, patients with MRSA hand infections experienced a substantial delay in receiving appropriate antibiotics.