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

Abstract #115866

Sabry Ayman, MD, Nagwa Samir, MD, MObgyn, Ton Van der Velden, MD, MPH, and Alaa Hassan, MBBCH, MPH, PhD. TAHSEEN/CATALYST, 53 Manial, 4th Floor, Cairo, 11451, Egypt, 002025325065, mohameds@tahseen.org

In Egypt, induced abortion is illegal and religiously impermissible. Despite prohibitions, induced and spontaneous abortions are common and the demand for postabortion care (PAC) services is high. Based on evidence of these complexities, TAHSEEN/CATALYST launched a program to improve the quality of care at the clinical level, while creating an environment of unprecedented preparedness and awareness of PAC within communities. Egyptian religious leaders have been crucial to ending the silence and stigma surrounding abortion, and assuring moral acceptability of improving PAC.

In workshops, teams identify their own communities' experience with undesired pregnancies, maternal mortality, and the risks of poor PAC at the community level. Muslim and Christian religious leaders and other community leaders recognized their unique potential roles in changing the social stigma, reducing the delays in treatment, and improving PAC.

With this understanding, teams developed action plans for increasing awareness, acceptability, and access to PAC in their community. These plans included religious leaders spearheading PAC awareness in mosques and churches and participating in public PAC campaigns. To our surprise, Church-based PAC meetings and public meetings were often held by Christian and Muslim leaders together and attended by men and women of both faiths. The program is now expanding to involve female religious leaders from both faiths to increase outreach to women.

Our presentation will provide evidence of how religious leaders' moral encouragement to PAC activities lent an unprecedented legitimacy to the program.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to analyze the importance of multi-faith collaboration in postabortion care (PAC), describe different roles of religious leaders in community awareness and mobilization, and describe a replicable model for community mobilization in PAC.

Keywords: Faith Community, Post-Abortion

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