ly, the motion planning problem is that of computing a path between two points in the topological space FP. In the rst two of ve seminal papers on the \Piano Movers' Problem" ([220{222, 229, 223], collected in the book [131]), Schwartz and Sharir show that the boundary of FP is a semialgebraic set (assuming the original constraints of the problem are semialgebraic). This then allows the motion ...

OBJECTIVES Family planning (FP) clinics are important access points for cervical cancer screening and referrals for follow-up care for abnormal Papanicolaou (Pap) smears for a substantial number of U.S. women. Because little is known about referral and facilitation practices in these clinics or client action based on referrals, we sought to determine FP provider referral and facilitation practi...

The Philippine government has adopted a policy called the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act (RPRH) in support of modern family planning (FP) and improved RH. This includes the goal of ensuring 6 million women access to modern contraception. Though the policy does not refer to abortion, it faces stiff opposition from domestic anti-abortion, religiously conservative groups, which...

The lack of human resources is a key challenge in scaling up of HIV services in Africa's health care system. Integrating HIV services could potentially increase their effectiveness and optimize the use of limited resources and clinical staff time. We examined the impact of integration of provider initiated HIV counselling and testing (PITC) and family planning (FP counselling and FP provision) ...

BACKGROUND The World Health Assembly has pledged to achieve universal reproductive health (RH) coverage by 2015. Therefore, China has been vigorously promoting the equalisation of basic public health services (i.e. RH services). The floating population (FP) is the largest special group of internal migrants in China and constitutes the current national focus. However, gaps exist in the access of...

As efforts to address unmet need for family planning and contraception (FP/C) accelerate, voluntary use, informed choice and quality must remain at the fore. Active involvement of affected populations has been recognized as one of the key principles in ensuring human rights in the provision of FP/C and in improving quality of care. However, community participation continues to be inadequately a...

BACKGROUND Reproductive health and Family Planning (FP) services have been of global concern especially in developing countries where fertility rates are high. Traditionally FP services had always targeted females with little or no attention given to males. To ensure equitable distribution of health services, Ministry of Health (MOH), Ghana adopted the Community-Based Health Planning and Servic...

BACKGROUND Young women in Malawi face many challenges in accessing family planning (FP), including distance to the health facility and partner disapproval. Our primary objective was to assess if training HSAs in couples counseling would increase modern FP uptake among young women. METHODS In this cluster randomized controlled trial, 30 HSAs from Lilongwe, Malawi received training in FP. The H...

BACKGROUND Future HIV prevention options for women will likely include Antiretroviral (ARV)-based intravaginal rings. Valuable insights may be gained by examining user experiences with a similar licensed technology, a contraceptive ring, especially in settings where this technology may not be currently available. METHODS In-depth interviews with 24 females enrolled in a trial assessing accept...

PURPOSE Pakistan is a patriarchal society in which male opinion leaders play an important role in determining health-seeking behaviors pertaining to family planning (FP) among their respective communities. This research focuses on cataloguing the perceptions of opinion leaders (clergymen, health professionals, and social workers) about the barriers for using services and practical solutions for...