Family planning leaders and implementers can draw from an established evidence base to integrate DMPA-SC in efforts to address unmet need and increase access to contraception through a range of delivery channels.
Based on growing demand among stakeholders, providers, and family planning clients, as well as increased investment from the donor community, countries across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are pursuing introduction and scale-up of DMPA-SC and self-injection. Through these country experiences, partners have generated evidence and practical guidance for ministries of health, nongovernmental implementing partners, and policymakers working to introduce and scale up DMPA-SC or similar products.
This healthy markets framework assessment highlights market opportunities for intramuscular (IM) and subcutaneous (SC) injectables and makes several recommendations on how to sustain and expand access.
The three primary takeaways from the assessment are:
Institutional author(s): Shaping Equitable Market Access for Reproductive Health (SEMA Reproductive Health)
Publication date: July, 2023
The Access Collaborative provides data-driven technical assistance (TA), coordination, resources, and tools to ensure that women and girls have increased access to DMPA-SC and self-injection as part of an expanded range of contraceptive methods, delivered through informed choice programming.
In addition to general information and evidence on DMPA-SC, partners can access the support outlined in the menu below by submitting a request through the technical assistance request form, also linked below. Your request can be submitted by emailing the completed form to FPoptions@path.org.
On March 21, 2023, the DMPA-SC Access Collaborative hosted this webinar highlighting the strengths and gaps of monitoring scale-up in the context of efforts to institutionalize DMPA-SC and self-injection in national family planning programs. The discussion focused on findings from Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia, touching upon national goals for DMPA-SC, in-country perspectives on the value proposition of DMPA-SC, and suggested indicators for use in tracking the scale-up of a new product.
Institutional author(s): PATH, JSI
Publication date: March, 2023
The DMPA-SC Update is a periodic newsletter from the PATH-JSI DMPA-SC Access Collaborative highlighting global efforts to expand access to the self-injectable DMPA-SC in the context of a full range of family planning options. Click here to subscribe. For more information, please contact FPoptions@path.org.
In March 2022, the DMPA-SC Access Collaborative Learning and Action Network (LAN) hosted an interactive skill-building workshop series on creating effective data visualizations to support family planning decision-making. This series was a hands-on skill-building opportunity using materials from the Access Collaborative’s Monitoring Learning and Evaluation (MLE) toolkit.
In this sequential series, each week’s session built upon the content of the previous session. For more information, please contact FPoptions@path.org.
Institutional author(s): PATH, JSI
Publication date: March, 2022
This webinar held on February 23, 2022 was hosted by Expanding Effective Contraceptive Options (EECO) led by WCG Cares with PSI and the DMPA-SC Access Collaborative led by PATH in partnership with JSI. The discussion focused on the introduction and scale up of self-care family planning methods in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting lessons and best practices from DMPA-SC scale-up and Caya® diaphragm pilot introductions in French-speaking West Africa. Presenters from Benin, Niger, and Senegal shared successes and challenges. This webinar was offered in French.
Institutional author(s): PATH, JSI, Population Services International (PSI), Association Béninoise pour le Marketing Social et la Communication pour la Santé, Expanding Effective Contraceptive Options
Publication date: February, 2022
The private sector holds great potential to reduce unmet need for family planning, and many countries are poised to adopt a total market approach for increasing contraceptive access through private pharmacies and drug shops. Policies supporting scale-up of family planning service provision and expanding method options such as DMPA-SC self-injection, must be prioritized in these entities.
The PATH-JSI DMPA-SC Access Collaborative and partners have gained valuable insights with relevance to private sector engagement on self-injection. This webinar held February 15, 2022 highlighted lessons learnt, challenges, recommendations, and considerations for policies supporting private sector engagement in self-injection in different country contexts. Specific topics included:
The discussion was moderated by Allen Namagembe, Deputy Project Director, Uganda DMPA-SC Access Collaborative, PATH.
Panelists:
Institutional author(s): PATH, JSI, Jhpiego, Nigeria Federal Ministry of Health, Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya, Association of Pharmacists of Madagascar
Publication date: February, 2022
Updating family planning and reproductive health preservice training is an important approach to make an impact on the health workforce and foster successful programs. In 2021, the DMPA-SC Access Collaborative, in collaboration with Uganda’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education and Sports, conducted a regional training for clinical and health training institutions on the topic of DMPA-SC including self-injection. This training integrated DMPA-SC content into the health provider preservice curriculum, trained tutors, and helped advance national scale-up of self-injection. As a result, 92 Ugandan health training institutions included self-injection content in their preservice curriculum for nurses, midwives, and clinical officers, and 190 tutors were trained—which will help ensure training of many more providers in the future.
During this process, the Access Collaborative gained valuable insights with relevance to other country contexts. This webinar held on January 27, 2022 highlighted lessons learnt, challenges, recommendations, and considerations for the inclusion of self-injection content in provider preservice training. In the Ugandan context, these include:
Institutional author(s): PATH, JSI
Publication date: January, 2022
The DMPA-SC Access Collaborative has published a collection of briefs on countries where we have provided focused technical assistance between 2017 and 2021. This includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia. Each brief describes the country’s introduction and scale-up experiences for DMPA-SC and self-injection, including accomplishments, challenges, innovations, key lessons, factors for success, and plans for the way forward.
On September 15, 2021, the PATH-JSI DMPA-SC Access Collaborative hosted this virtual launch and walk-through of the redesigned DMPA-SC Country Data Dashboard and new monitoring, learning, and evaluation (MLE) tools.
The AC data dashboard is an interactive tool that presents available data collected during DMPA-SC self-injection (SI) introduction and scale-up. The dashboard visualizes SI uptake, tracks implementation of key policies, and integrates data use practices to support data-driven decision making. Information presented on the dashboard has changed over time to reflect shifting needs of stakeholders. After undergoing a human centered design exercise to better understand information needs surrounding SI introduction and scale-up, the Access Collaborative recently redesigned the DMPA-SC Country data dashboard. This webinar introduced new data available and demonstrated new features on the dashboard.
The webinar also included an overview of the Access Collaborative’s new MLE toolkit developed to help meet the needs of ministries of health and implementing partners. This toolkit features three tools for dynamic decision-making: a data visualization principles guide, an Excel dashboard how-to guide, and a data use and indicators guide. The tools are primers in how to create dynamic and visually compelling SI program data displays (e.g., dashboards, presentations) that facilitate comprehension and use of SI data for family planning program decision-making. While the toolkit was developed with SI in mind, many of the principles could be applied to data visualization needs across family planning programs and methods.
Institutional author(s): PATH, JSI
Publication date: September, 2021