Progress and Potential of Self-Care: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

The momentum around self-care is building through an array of self-care practices, policies, and interventions worldwide. This report aims to take stock of the SRH self-care field and document its progress. It is intended to provide a resource for global and national advocacy, to inform implementation of self-care guidelines, and to link the reader to evidence and learning exchanges. It includes case examples describing the process of introducing and scaling up DMPA-SC self-injection in Malawi and Nigeria.

This DMPA-SC Advocacy Pack brief provides tips on when, why, and how to engage traditional and social media to advance your advocacy to increase access to DMPA-SC.

This brief lists key references and resources from the evidence base on DMPA-SC. Pair this with the Evidence at-a-glance brief if your target decision-maker would like to have access to the data in that handout.

This toolkit contains resources designed to help pharmacy associations become effective advocates and begin working to change policies in their countries. The toolkit can be adapted to advocate for any injectable contraceptive. The toolkit includes a Resource for Considering DMPA-SC.

The ability of individuals to space, time, and limit pregnancies in alignment with their preferences, with or without the support of a healthcare provider

This Family Planning High Impact Practice brief outlines the principles and practices of contraceptive self-care: the ability of individuals to freely and effectively space their pregnancies, time their pregnancies, and prevent pregnancies in alignment with their fertility preferences, with or without the support of a healthcare provider. This is facilitated by the integration of contraceptive self-care interventions into policies, programs, and delivery channels across health systems including family planning and reproductive health.

This position paper outlines the Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society’s (FOGSI) endorsement of self-injectable DMPA-SC as an integral part of the contraceptive basket of choices due to its safety, effectiveness, reversibility, user acceptability, and satisfaction.

This policy brief serves as a guide as DMPA-SC is being integrated into India’s family planning program. The policy recommendations, formulated through evidence and insights, pave the way for successful self-administration and maximization of benefits for clients.

This policy landscape can be leveraged by applicants interested in applying to the DMPA-SC Regulatory Advocacy Catalytic Opportunity Fund (COF). The landscape was originally developed in 2020 to understand policies and regulations, including over-the-counter regulations, that impact women’s access to DMPA-SC and identify short- and long-term advocacy opportunities. In 2022, it was refreshed to understand policy shifts and additional advocacy opportunities in a subset of 12 of the original 18 countries currently eligible for the Regulatory Advocacy COF. Insights from the policy landscape have informed the design and eligibility criteria of the Regulatory Advocacy COF, proactively identified opportunities, and provided frameworks and guidance for interested applicants.

The desire for private sector family planning programs to have the ability to overbrand/overpackage the Pfizer Inc. DMPA-SC product, Sayana® Press, has existed since initial product introduction planning discussions among global partners in 2008–2009. The PATH-JSI DMPA-SC Access Collaborative solicited input from the team’s regional technical advisors, country coordinators, and local partners to better understand the status of overbranding, and any related advocacy­­, in the countries where we work.

The working meeting on “The Future of DMPA-SC: Expanding access and options in 2019” was held in November 2018 as a pre-meeting before the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kigali, Rwanda was intended to bring together colleagues and partners working to introduce and scale-up subcutaneous DMPA (DMPA-SC) in 14 countries to exchange challenges, successes, and lessons learned—and to plan together how they can continue to expand women’s access and options with DMPA-SC.