The Center for International Reproductive Health Training at the University of Michigan (CIRHT) partners with academic institutions in developing countries to integrate competency-based pre-service training in Family Planning and Comprehensive Abortion Care, revamping research culture and improving the quality of care, ultimately strengthening capacity for life-saving reproductive health services.
This news review is one way we hope to keep an ongoing conversation with our partners and the global reproductive health community. (Hyperlinks in the text lead to relevant articles.)
|
|
It's the May newsletter! Thank you for your inquiries and apologies for the travel-related delay!
|
|
Anniversaries Good and Bad
|
|
And to mark the anniversary, the Trump administration is
expanding it domestically, cutting off fund for women’ health to any organization that has anything to do with abortion services,
in particular Planned Parenthood, which serves millions of women with primary health care across the country.
In 2011, in an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, the Texas Legislature
slashed the state’s family planning budget by two-thirds, and reorganized the funding system to give least priority to dedicated family planning providers like Planned Parenthood. As a result, 82 family planning clinics closed, and the number of Texans receiving services through Title X
dropped by 50 percent in the year after the budget cuts. A study last year identified a
spike in teen births following the cuts.
Soon after, in 2013, Texas completely
excluded Planned Parenthood from its separate low-income women’s health program, electing to forgo millions in federal funds. After Planned Parenthood, which previously saw more than 40 percent of the clients in the program, was
kicked out, tens of thousands of women lost access to family planning services.
Researchers in 2016 found a decline in contraceptive use and increase in Medicaid births in communities that had been previously served by Planned Parenthood clinics.
|
|
CIRHT and Michigan Research Highlights
|
|
Congratulations to our partner A
lmaz Berhe from
Mekelle University
(top) on presentation at the American College of Nurse-Midwives 2018 conference of her research: "Levels and determinants of postnatal care utilization in Tigray, Ethiopia". See her poster
here. Thanks to
her mentors
University of Michigan School of Nursing's
Lee Roosevelt &
Ruth Zielinski (seen above) who presented it when Almaz was unable to attend.
The School of Nursing also highlighted research from Janis Miller and
Alain Mukwege in
DR Congo on fistula treatmen
t, working to establish the "Panzi Score" to create treatment protocols.
The
William Davidson Institute at the Univers
ity of Michigan "is part of two separate grants awarded by the
Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition
(RHSC)
Innovation Fund
, the organization’s flagship initiative to spur and finance promising new ideas and strategies. The coalition, which is the largest network of reproductive health organizations, aims to ensure that a range of quality reproductive health supplies are available equally to all people who need them regardless of income."
|
|
The Irish Referendum and Global Abortion Access
|
|
The
huge vote to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Irish constitution and allow for abortion will allow for reproductive choice for Irish women and girls. The vote was a “
momentous result for reproductive rights” and led to worldwide
public debates about female reproductive rights and abortion restrictions in
Malawi (where “
each year 141,000 women have abortions, almost all clandestine”),
Zimbabwe,
South Korea,
Poland,
Belgium,
Northern Ireland,
Argentina,
Colombia, and
El Salvador.
|
|
A lot of news -- from 26 countries this month. We are always interested to hear your feedback and suggestions about relevant news and new sources.
|
|
Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Cote d’Ivoire
DRC
Egypt
Ethiopia
Gabon
Ghana
Guinea
Kenya
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Namibia
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
South Africa
South Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe
|
|
The Center of Excellence at St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical Center in Reproductive Health in Addis Ababa has a new
website
.
Have a look and learn more about its Vision, Mission and Core Values.
We wrote about the Center when it was initiated nearly a year ago:
|
|
New Material in the Family Planning Learning Resources website
|
|
Additional learning resources, including instructional videos and University of Michigan OB-Gyn Grand Rounds have been added. Click on the icon below for more:
|
As ever, research resources can be found on the Taubman Health Sciences Library Open Access Research Guide, including:
- RSS feeds to keep current in the biomedical and health sciences literature
- Research and clinical (point of care) databases
- Selected open access journals
- Freely available online health sciences books
- Health and epidemiology data sources
- Evidence-based medicine (EBM) guides and resources
- Selected freely available health-related mobile resources
|
|
Global Research and Resources
|
|
Reproductive Health Professionals Changing Lives
|
|
|
|
|
|
|