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.

Tools for advocacy and communications to increase access to a new type of injectable contraception

Subcutaneous DMPA (DMPA-SC) is an innovative and easy-to-use injectable that is transforming contraceptive access, use, and choice for women and adolescent girls. Advocates have an important role to play in making sure their country’s policies and funding support access to a broad method mix, including new options like DMPA-SC.

The DMPA-SC Advocacy Pack is designed to accelerate your advocacy efforts. It consists of evidence-based materials, in English and French, for advocates to use both for their own strategy development and for direct advocacy with decision-makers. Materials are customizable and unbranded so that you can tailor them to your country context.

This DMPA-SC advocacy pack brief details the strong body of evidence and experience with self-injection of DMPA-SC in low-resource settings, including how the practice can reduce access-related barriers, improve contraceptive continuation, and enhance women’s autonomy.

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 brief offers quick facts on the benefits of DMPA-SC; the product’s potential for empowering women and adolescent girls; the product’s availability; and how subcutaneous DMPA is different from intramuscular DMPA (DMPA-IM).

This DMPA-SC advocacy pack brief outlines existing evidence on DMPA-SC with data grouped into top-line, evidence-based messages, with corresponding data from different countries. This handout can be printed and distributed directly to decision-makers. It contains several one-page spotlight handouts on specific sub-topics, which can be printed and paired with the two-page summary—for distribution to decision-makers—as needed.

Using simple messages, this case statement describes reasons why DMPA-SC is a valuable and game-changing addition to a broad contraceptive method mix.

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.

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.

This brief summarizes recent evidence from African countries on the costs and cost-effectiveness of DMPA-SC. Key findings include that DMPA-SC may help reduce service delivery costs by catalyzing expansion of channels closest to women and that self-injected DMPA-SC is cost-saving as compared to clinic-administered DMPA-IM when accounting for costs to women and health systems.