May 17, 2019

Progress in contraceptive prevalence rates since the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning: survey results from selected high-priority countries in sub-Saharan Africa

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Authors: Saifuddin Ahmed, Yoonjoung Choi, Jose G Rimon, Souleymane Alzouma, Peter Gichangi, Georges Guiella, Patrick Kayembe, Simon P Kibira, l Fredrick Makumbi, Funmilola OlaOlorun, Elizabeth Omoluabi, Easmon Otupiri, Sani Oumarou, Assefa Seme, Solomon Shiferaw, Philip Anglewicz, Scott Radloff, & Amy Tsui

Journal: Lancet Global Health, 7(7). May 2019

We examined the post-2012 London Summit on Family Planning trends in modern contraceptive prevalence rates in nine settings in eight sub-Saharan African countries (Burkina Faso; Kinshasa, DR Congo; Ethiopia; Ghana; Kenya; Niamey, Niger; Kaduna, Nigeria; Lagos, Nigeria; and Uganda). These settings represent almost 73% of the population of the 18 initial FP2020 commitment countries in the region.

We used data from 45 rounds of the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020) surveys, which were all undertaken after 2012, to ascertain the trends in modern contraceptive prevalence rates among all women aged 15–49 years and all similarly aged women who were married or cohabitating. We included the following as modern contraceptive methods: oral pills, intrauterine devices, injectables, male and female sterilisations, implants, condom, lactational amenorrhea method, vaginal barrier methods, emergency contraception, and standard days method. We fitted design-based linear and quadratic logistic regression models and estimated the annual rate of changes in modern contraceptive prevalence rates for each country setting from the average marginal effects of the fitted models (expressed in absolute percentage points). Additionally, we did a random-effects meta-analysis to summarise the overall results for the PMA2020 countries.

Overall, the annual growth rates exceeded the 1·4 percentage points needed to achieve the FP2020 goal of 120 million additional users of modern contraceptives by 2020 in the select study settings. Local programme experiences can be studied for lessons to be shared with other countries aiming to respond to unmet demands for family planning. The findings of this study have implications for the way progress is tracked toward achieving the FP2020 goal.

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