Humanitarian crises and disease outbreaks exacerbate the barriers that women face when seeking reproductive health services. They also highlight a timeless truth: women must be able to manage their own sexual and reproductive health—especially in a crisis when health systems are at their weakest.
On November 17, 2021, the PATH-JSI DMPA-SC Access Collaborative hosted this webinar on making self-care interventions available, including DMPA-SC self-injection, in humanitarian settings. Through this virtual discussion, we addressed key challenges in humanitarian settings that need to be addressed in order to leverage the potential of self-injection as an option to ease access to family planning in the context of a full method mix.
Discussion highlights included:
This discussion was moderated by George Barigye, Regional Technical Advisor, DMPA-SC Access Collaborative, PATH, Uganda. The keynote introduction was given by Dr. Adewole Adefalu, Country Coordinator, DMPA-SC Access Collaborative, JSI, Nigeria.
Featured panelists:
This discussion encouraged all stakeholders—program implementers, researchers, government officials, health providers, and members of civil society—to consider humanitarian sector perspectives when advocating for policies that advance self-care behaviors and commodities essential to improving health outcomes in crisis settings.