Abstract

The call for safer, more effective contraceptive methods is not the same as ensuring informed choice and access to users in countries around the world. But these two diverse perspectives have dominated the debate between health scientists and contraceptive service providers on the best investments in reproductive health and medicine for the last 50 years. Recently, the members of a US-based community of practice (COP) entitled “LARC & Permanent Methods COP met in Washington DC to focus on how best to expand method choice and discuss what it takes to operationalize method choice at the country level. After a series of panels beautifully illustrating the data globally on method use and choice from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), procurement data and commodity gaps from the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, community-based perspectives on new methods from FHI360, and a review from Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 on the underlying dynamics affecting method adoption, continuation and switching among users in developing countries, the COP examined the conditions and environment required to ensure method choice for users as well as the service delivery policies and investments that shape the types of choices available to users, and the requirements for providers and procurement agencies alike.