Poster Session on Sexuality and reproductive health (2)

This study assesses the contraceptive use dynamics, its program and policy implications in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Data from three rounds of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) of each country were used, and the currently married women aged 15-49 years of the latest DHS were considered for detailed analysis. IBM-SPSS (Version 19.0) was used for bivariate and multi-variate analyses with a significance level of 5%.

Analyses indicate considerable intra-country differences in contraceptive use, trends, method mix and determinants. Contraceptive plateau was evident in Bangladesh and Nepal (each with 0.3 point annual increase), while contraceptive use had declined at (-0.6) points annually in Pakistan; between last two rounds of the surveys. Health care autonomy enhances the likelihood of contraceptive use in India (OR=1.06), but not in Nepal (OR=0.60) and Bangladesh (OR=0.45). Exposure to family planning messages increases the chances of sterilization acceptance in Pakistan (OR=1.32); contrary to India (OR=0.92) and Nepal (OR=0.71). Results suggest broadening of method choices with quality service delivery, reconsideration/ review of program focus, repositioning spacing methods in national programs, and demand assessment through monitoring age-sex distribution; all with country specific amendment are pertinent.

Because of many benefits of the family planning programmes, African governments had opted to establish a FPP during in the 1980s and early 1990s. But these FPPs depended mainly on external funding. When the international funders shifted their funding priorities from FPPs to HIV/AIDS in mid 1990s, implementation of FPP became a serious challenge. Ethiopia is an exception. The government initiated the Health Extension Programme (HEP) in 2004 that provides health care services (including FP) at community level. This study is aimed at assessing the impact of HEP on family planning using three rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in 2000, 2005 and 2011. Data were analyzed using tabular and graphical methods, and a binary logistic regression model is fitted to identify factors associated with contraceptive use. Findings of the study reveal that contraceptive uptake has increased dramatically especially in the rural areas and the most popular contraception is injectables, a method provided by the extension workers. In addition, the regions where the HEP is concentrated are doing much better than other regions. So there is no doubt that HEP has a positive impact towards contraceptive use in Ethiopia and other African countries need to emulate such an initiative.

Female sterilization has been the dominant method of family planning in India since the early 1980s. We use data from various government publications and three rounds of the Indian National Family Health Survey conducted in India in 1992-93, 1998-99 and 2005-06 to examine the trends and patterns in the use of female sterilization in India. We also aim to investigate whether or not there has been any change in the profile of acceptors of female sterilization in India over the last two decades. Furthermore, an attempt will also be made to examine the births averted due to female sterilization in India and in the major states of India. Finally, we will examine the quality of female sterilization services and post-sterilization regret associated with female sterilization. Appropriate bivariate and multivariate techniques will be used to fulfil the objectives of the paper. We propose to use the method suggested by Liu et al. (2008) for estimating the births averted due to female sterilization.