Learning from success cases: ecological analysis of potential pathways to universal access to family planning care in low- and middle-income countries.

Background  Universal access to family planning services is a well-recognized human right and several countries and organizations are committed to this goal. Our objective was to identify countries who improved family planning coverage in the last 40 years and investigate which contexts enabled those advances.  Methods  Analyses were based on data from publicly available national health surveys carried out since 1986 in Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Brazil, and Ecuador, selected based on previous evidence. We estimated demand for family planning satisfied with modern methods (mDFPS) for each country and explored inequalities in terms of wealth, women's education, and women's age. We also explored contextual differences in terms of women's empowerment, percentage of population living in extreme poverty, and share of each type of contraceptive. To better understand political and sociocultural contexts, country case studies were included, based on literature review.  Results  Patterns of mDFPS increase were distinct in the selected countries. Current level of mDFPS coverage ranged between 94% in Brazil and 38% in Afghanistan. All countries experienced important reduction in both gender inequality and extreme poverty. According to the share of each type of contraceptive, most countries presented higher use of short-acting reversible methods. Exceptions were Ecuador, where the most used method is sterilization, and Egypt, which presented higher use of long-acting reversible methods. In the first years analyzed, all countries presented huge gaps in coverage according to wealth, women's education and women's age. All countries managed to increase coverage over recent years, especially among women from the more vulnerable groups.  Conclusions  Family planning coverage increased along with reductions in poverty and gender inequality, with substantial increases in coverage among the most vulnerable in recent years. Policies involving primary health care services, provision of various methods, and high quality training of health providers are crucial to increase coverage.

Setting research priorities to improve global newborn health and prevent stillbirths by 2025.

BACKGROUND: In 2013, an estimated 2.8 million newborns died and 2.7 million were stillborn. A much greater number suffer from long term impairment associated with preterm birth, intrauterine growth restriction, congenital anomalies, and perinatal or infectious causes. With the approaching deadline for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, there was a need to set the new research priorities on newborns and stillbirth with a focus not only on survival but also on health, growth and development. We therefore carried out a systematic exercise to set newborn health research priorities for 2013-2025. METHODS: We used adapted Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) methods for this prioritization exercise. We identified and approached the 200 most productive researchers and 400 program experts, and 132 of them submitted research questions online. These were collated into a set of 205 research questions, sent for scoring to the 600 identified experts, and were assessed and scored by 91 experts. RESULTS: Nine out of top ten identified priorities were in the domain of research on improving delivery of known interventions, with simplified neonatal resuscitation program and clinical algorithms and improved skills of community health workers leading the list. The top 10 priorities in the domain of development were led by ideas on improved Kangaroo Mother Care at community level, how to improve the accuracy of diagnosis by community health workers, and perinatal audits. The 10 leading priorities for discovery research focused on stable surfactant with novel modes of administration for preterm babies, ability to diagnose fetal distress and novel tocolytic agents to delay or stop preterm labour. CONCLUSION: These findings will assist both donors and researchers in supporting and conducting research to close the knowledge gaps for reducing neonatal mortality, morbidity and long term impairment. WHO, SNL and other partners will work to generate interest among key national stakeholders, governments, NGOs, and research institutes in these priorities, while encouraging research funders to support them. We will track research funding, relevant requests for proposals and trial registers to monitor if the priorities identified by this exercise are being addressed.

Breastfeeding patterns and exposure to suboptimal breastfeeding among children in developing countries: review and analysis of nationally representative surveys

Background: Suboptimal breastfeeding is associated with higher mortality among infants and young children in the developing world...