January 23, 2014

Expanded Access to Contraception Provides Economic Benefits to Sub-Saharan African Country

Two papers were recently published highlighting the work of Joseph Babigumira and colleagues on the economic analyses of unsafe abortions and on increasing access to contraception in Uganda.  His work used modeling methods to show that unsafe abortions cost the country substantial resources and that providing universal access to modern contraceptives would be highly cost-effective. Recent news stories, such as one in The Observer, about an agreement between the U.S. and Uganda to increase support for maternal health programs underline the importance of these issues.

Projections show that that providing expanded access to contraception decreases the rates of total fertility, birth, maternal mortality, and child mortality while reducing costs of maternal health care.  The studies highlight the need to make expanded contraceptive coverage a public health priority.  He presented these findings the 6th African Population Conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on December 5-9, 2011.

Links to the full text of these publications and others can be found here.

The ASPH Newsletter also featured Dr. Joseph Babigumira’s work here.