Recorded presentation

Michael Strong, PhD, PHN Office, USAID/Nairobi, USAID Offices, Kasarani Rd., Nairobi, Kenya, 254-20-862400 x.2512, mstrong@usaid.gov

In settings affected by HIV/AIDS, resources for family planning have either diminished in absolute or relative terms, or both. While demand for family planning has shown resiliency to reductions in the availability of publicly subsidized services in lower middle-income settings [for example, Indonesia], emerging data from Kenya suggests that when a growing share of health resources are used to address disease-specific initiatives [e.g.STIs/HIV/AIDS], basic health care, including family planning and reproductive health care, suffers. Preliminary data from the 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey shows contraceptive prevalence at a plateau after years of increasing steadily, and a small increase in TFR. Further analysis of the data will allow us to better understand how those with greatest need for subsidized family planning services [the poor and otherwise marginalized] have fared over this period when subsidized services have become less available. Likewise, over the five years prior to the survey, maternity care indicators appear to have plateaued with differences in service utilization between the rural poor and better off groups remaining unacceptably large. Failure to substantially reduce health inequities can be linked to diminished resource support for the expansion of primary healthcare services, including reproductive healthand family planning. Although the paper draws on data from Kenya, the lessons it draws about funding dynamics and their consequences for reproductive health programs are instructive for the many countries gravely affected by HIV/AIDS, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand dynamics created by rather sudden increase in disease-specific funding on funding and programs addressing related health issues
• Identify possible explanations for the plateau in contraceptive prevalence and TFR in Kenya.

Keywords: Family Planning, Reproductive Health

Related Web page: N/A

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation