Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #114235

Jennifer L. Mason, MPH, CHES¹, Graciela Salvador-Davila, MD, MPH, MS¹, Taroub Harb Faramand, MD, MPH², and Orlando Hernandez, PhD¹. (1) Oprimal Birth Spacing Initiative, CATALYST Consortium, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036, 202-775-1977, jmason@pacthq.org, (2) The CATALYST Consortium, 1201 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036

The CATALYST Consortium, through the support of USAID, has led the effort to revisit birth spacing as a key reproductive health concept and to reposition family planning through global research and program implementation around the concept of the optimal birth spacing interval (OBSI). Evidence to date suggests that spacing new births three to five years after the birth of the last child is the interval with healthiest outcomes for pregnancies, newborns, infants, children and mothers.

Due to the global preexisting familiarity with the concepts of birth spacing and the maternal and child health focused approach that OBSI recommendations espouse, CATALYST has been able to work with governmental and non-governmental organizations to reposition Family Planning through adoption of OBSI. CATALYST has worked with many implementing health and non-health organizations as well as behavioral and scientific researchers to develop state-of-the-art OBSI based programs for a variety of cultures and settings; including within populations that have been traditionally not reached through conventional outreach programs. Through socially and culturally appropriate OBSI programs, FP has been revisited and has gained renewed support in many locations.

The author will highlight results and lessons learned from both qualitative and quantitative studies from five global OBSI interventions. The results demonstrate increases in knowledge on OBSI/FP as well as increases in the use of FP services and contraception among program beneficiaries. Information on some of the CATALYST strategies for repositioning of FP through OBSI will be detailed; such as policy development, training approaches, community mobilization and BCC campaigns.

Learning Objectives:

• · At the conclusion of the presentation the audience will be able to list the CATALYST Consortium’s main OBSI recommendations.
• · At the conclusion of the presentation the audience will be able to identify at least three ways to utilize OBSI recommendations to reposition Family Planning
• · At the conclusion of the presentation the audience will recognize how OBSI can be utilized to encourage Family Planning use among hard-to-reach populations

Keywords: Family Planning, International Reproductive Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation