PATH has compiled a list featuring presentations, posters, and events on the topic of DMPA-SC, including self-injection and self-care, to be featured at the International Conference on Family Planning on 3-6 November 2025. The list linked below includes nearly 70 abstracts highlighting the latest DMPA-SC research and implementation experience from a diverse array of partner organizations.

Special journal supplement

In this special issue, the Gates Foundation invested in a coordinated effort to understand how self-injection can be best introduced into different markets across six countries (Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Pakistan, and India). Within this effort, the Gates Foundation sought assistance from the University of California San Francisco to launch the Self-Injection Learning Exchange with two goals: (1) Aggregate and synthesize grantee learnings and (2) Share resources and facilitate discussions of emergent findings. Made up of twelve different grantees and two funders, the Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund (who have jointly funded self-injection investments), the Learning Exchange synthesizes findings and progress across 12 investments into a quarterly slide deck, meets quarterly with funders and grantees, and has organized this special supplement.

The objective of this supplement is to capitalize on this unique opportunity to reflect across a set of coordinated investments, to bring together diverse and complementary studies on self-injection, and to offer commentary related to lessons learned from this coordinated effort.

This medication use evaluation assessed the impact of an initiative at North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System (NFSGVHS) in the United States to offer patients self-administered DMPA-SC. A retrospective chart review of electronic health records was conducted for patients who received ≥ 1 outpatient prescription for DMPA-SC from June 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023. Forty patients initiated self-administered DMPA-SC. A subgroup of patients were contacted via telephone as a follow-up to determine if there were unmet needs for ongoing contraceptive care. The uptake in prescribing suggests that clinicians and patients have embraced self-administration of DMPA-SC within the NFSGVHS.

Brown JM, Pardo KM. Federal Practitioner. 2025;42(8):314-317. doi:10.12788/fp.0614

This guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to provide a people-centred, evidence-based normative guideline that will support individuals, communities, and countries with quality health services and self-care interventions, based on PHC strategies, comprehensive essential service packages and people-centredness. The guidance includes a “strong” recommendation for self-administered injectable contraception, stating that this should be made available as an additional approach to deliver injectable contraception for individuals of reproductive age.

DMPA-SC Update is a periodic newsletter from the Injectables 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.

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

These DMPA-SC Advocacy Pack briefs outline existing evidence on DMPA-SC grouped into top-line messages featuring data from different countries. Several “spotlight” handouts on specific topics can be paired with the summary brief as needed. All handouts can be printed and distributed directly to decision-makers.

This DMPA-SC Advocacy Pack 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.

The Injectables Access Collaborative Learning and Action Network, in collaboration with USAID’s Frontier Health Markets Engage project, hosted this December 7, 2023 webinar on the latest innovations, policy developments, and evidence on access to DMPA-SC and self-injection through private sector channels such as pharmacies, drug shops, and private clinics.

One-third of contraceptive users in low- and middle-income countries access their method from a private sector source. Momentum is growing to ensure that contraceptive injectables, including DMPA-SC/self-injection, are among the range of methods offered through private channels. Speakers shared the latest evidence regarding pharmacy and drug shop provision of DMPA-SC/self-injection, updates on the release of a generic product, reflections on packaging for the private sector, and tensions between equity and financial sustainability in a changing landscape for contraceptive procurement financing. Speakers and participants discussed innovations to improve private sector channel economics and advance both equity and sustainability.

This event is part of series on task-sharing, along with this webinar on expanding community access to injectable contraception.

An in-depth look at DMPA-SC and self-injection introduction in Zambia

The DMPA-SC Access Collaborative (AC) hosted this virtual discussion on February 16, 2023 to explore the challenges of introducing new contraceptive methods in the context of informed choice programming. This webinar focused on findings from a recent study conducted in Zambia which aimed to determine:

• The barriers to clients’ ability to exercise autonomy in their choice of family planning methods and modes of administration.
• The extent to which provider perceptions and method bias affect access to self-injection as a new contraceptive option.

This research was conducted as part of the AC’s broader learning agenda and focused on the potential risks to informed choice that could arise as new products or service innovations are integrated in family planning programs. While a new intervention is intended to expand contraceptive access and options, its introduction may inadvertently convey to providers that it is inherently better than existing products or practices. In the case of DMPA-SC, providers may promote self-injection over provider administration. Alternatively, providers may feel hesitant about a new method and withhold information. In either case, the client’s right to receive accurate information about a variety of methods and to make an informed choice about her reproductive health care is compromised. To explore these questions, the AC conducted a literature review and study interviewing both clients and providers to understand how DMPA-SC and self-injection are being offered in Zambia’s Copperbelt Province.