BACKGROUND Adolescents' consultation of primary health care services remains problematic despite their accessibility. The reproductive health service seeking behavior of adolescents is the object of much research but little is known about how this behavior is influenced by the gatekeeping system. This study aimed to explore general practitioners' perceptions of the appropriateness of gatekeepin...

The Syrian conflict has displaced five million individuals outside their country with Lebanon hosting the largest numbers per capita. Around 24% of Syrian refugees fleeing to Lebanon are women of reproductive age (15-49). Yet, a better understanding of the sexual and reproductive health needs of Syrian refugee women in Lebanon is required to improve provided services. Eleven focus group discuss...

BACKGROUND Although the Republic of Vanuatu has improved maternal indicators, more needs to be done to improve equity among the poorest in the use of reproductive health services to expedite the progress towards the Millennium Development Goal 5(MDG 5) target. While large developing country studies provide evidence of a rich-poor gap in reproductive health services utilization, not much is writ...

The consensus achieved at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) signaled a move away from discussing population issues in the context of demographic targets, toward global recognition that the problems associated with rapidly growing human populations are part of a broader human development agenda. Devoid of demographic targets, the ICPD program of action inste...

This paper considers new developments to strengthen sexual and reproductive health and HIV linkages and discusses factors that continue to impede progress. It is based on a previous review undertaken for the United Kingdom Department for International Development in 2006 that examined the constraints and opportunities to scaling up these linkages. We argue that, despite growing evidence that li...

Policies relating to contraceptive services (population, family planning and reproductive health policies) often receive weak or fluctuating levels of commitment from national policy elites in Southern countries, leading to slow policy evolution and undermining implementation. This is true of Kenya, despite the government's early progress in committing to population and reproductive health poli...

The papers and commentaries in this special issue illuminate progress made by low- and middle-income countries towards implementation of the Programme of Action (PoA) agreed by 179 countries during the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. The PoA presents a path-breaking sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) framework for global and national popula...

BACKGROUND Currently in Ethiopia, young people's sexual and reproductive health services are limited and there is a growing issue of confidentiality and affordability of these health services. Moreover, the available services provided are not sensitive to the special needs of young people. Therefore, this study was aimed to assess young people's sexual and reproductive health service utilizatio...

OBJECTIVES To identify where vouchers have been used for reproductive health (RH) services, to what extent RH voucher programmes have been evaluated, and whether the programmes have been effective. METHODS A systematic search of the peer review and grey literature was conducted to identify RH voucher programmes and evaluation findings. Experts were consulted to verify RH voucher programme inf...