Decolonizing global health: an agenda for research.

This editorial outlines the background to the BMC Health Services Research collection on decolonizing global health. The discourse on decolonizing global health is gaining increasing momentum. These persistent 'voices' have coalesced into a 'movement'.

Spatial Clustering in Temporal Trends of Female Genital Mutilation Risk: Leveraging Sparse Data in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a harmful practice rooted in gender inequality. Its elimination is part of national and international agendas including the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Understanding its geographical evolution is crucial for targeted programming.

COVID-19 and beyond: how lessons and evidence from implementation research can benefit health systems' response and preparedness for COVID-19 and future epidemics.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic-and based on limited data on the novel coronavirus-it was projected that African countries will be ravaged and the health systems overwhelmed. Fortunately, Africa has so far defied these dire predictions. Many factors account for the less dramatic outcome, in particular the local know-how gained through dealing with previous epidemics, such as Ebola, and the early and coordinated political and public health response, applying a combination of containment and mitigation measures.

Cost and impact of scaling up female genital mutilation prevention and care programs: Estimated resource requirements and impact on incidence and prevalence.

Purpose: SDG 5.3 targets include eliminating harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Limited information is available about levels of investment needed and realistic estimates of potential incidence change.

Towards the elimination of FGM by 2030: A statistical assessment.

In 2015, UN member states committed to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Agenda. To reach this goal, interventions need to be targeted and guided by the best available evidence. To date, however, estimates of the number of girls and women affected by FGM and their trends over time and geographic space have been limited by the availability, specificity and quality of population-level data.

The Political, Research, Programmatic, and Social Responses to Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the 25 Years Since the International Conference on Population and Development.

Among the ground-breaking achievements of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was its call to place adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) on global health and development agendas. This article reviews progress made in low- and middle-income countries in the 25 years since the ICPD in six areas central to ASRH-adolescent pregnancy, HIV, child marriage, violence against women and girls, female genital mutilation, and menstrual hygiene and health. It also examines the ICPD's contribution to the progress made.

Introducing the Progesterone Vaginal Ring (PVR) as a New Option for Postpartum Family Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from Engagements with Stakeholders.

The progesterone vaginal ring (PVR) is a ring-shaped device designed for use by women in the postpartum period to regulate fertility by complementing and extending the contraceptive effectiveness of lactational amenorrhea to suppress ovulation.1 It is available in eight Latin American countries for use by breastfeeding women who want more effective modern contraceptives in addition to contraceptive benefits provided by lactational amenorrhea alone.1 The PVR is a method that can be suitable to women in sub-Saharan Africa, given the near-universal practice of breastfeeding and the current level of unmet need for contraception in the postpartum period.

Do Women Find the Progesterone Vaginal Ring Acceptable? Findings from Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal.

The progesterone vaginal ring (PVR) is a contraceptive designed for use by breastfeeding women in the first year postpartum. This Report presents results of an acceptability study of the PVR in Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal. Women seeking postpartum family planning services were offered various contraceptive options including the PVR.

Knowledge and provision of misoprostol among pharmacy workers in Senegal: a cross sectional study.

Background: Making misoprostol widely available for management of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) and post abortion care (PAC) is essential for reducing maternal mortality. Private pharmacies (thereafter called "pharmacies") are integral in supplying medications to the general public in Senegal. In the case of misoprostol, pharmacies are also the main supplier to public providers and therefore have a key role in increasing its availability.

What works and what does not: a discussion of popular approaches for the abandonment of female genital mutilation.

The prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is reducing in almost all countries in which it is a traditional practice. There are huge variations between countries and communities though, ranging from no change at all to countries and communities where the practice has been more than halved from one generation to the next. Various interventions implemented over the last 30-40 years are believed to have been instrumental in stimulating this reduction, even though in most cases the decrease in prevalence has been slow.

The effectiveness of a community-based education program on abandoning female genital mutilation/cutting in Senegal.

A pre- and post-test comparison-group design was used to evaluate the effect of a community education program on community members'willingness to abandon female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in rural areas of southern Senegal. Developed by TOSTAN (a Senegalese nongovernmental organization), the education program aimed to empower women through a broad range of educational and health-promoting activities. Our findings suggest that information from the program was diffused widely within the intervention villages, as indicated by improvements in knowledge about and critical attitudes toward FGM/C among women and men who had and had not participated in the program, without corresponding improvement in the comparison villages.

The role of individual and community normative factors: a multilevel analysis of contraceptive use among women in union in Mali.

Context: Unlike in other African countries, the fertility rate in Mali has remained at a relatively high rate of 6.8 births per woman. Little research exists on the role that community norms play in use of family planning, particularly in low-prevalence countries.