Thanks to Dan Sherr for this article.
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Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty, Contraceptives, Rejected by Government, Are Unaffordable for Many in Majority-Catholic Nation

Maria Susana Espinoza wanted only two children. But it was not until after the birth of her fourth child in six years that she learned any details about birth control.

“I knew it existed, but I didn’t know how it works,” said Espinoza, who lives with her husband and children in a squatter’s hut in a vast, stinking garbage dump by Manila Bay.

For full article, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com

Shelburne, VT - On April 22nd, Population Media Center (PMC) will celebrate Earth Day. PMC is an international nonprofit organization that strives to bring about the stabilization of human population numbers at a level that can be sustained by the world’s natural resources, in order to improve the well-being of people around the world and lessen the harmful impact of humanity on the earth’s environment. PMC uses entertainment-education strategies, like serialized dramas on radio and television that encourage positive social and health behaviors, such as the use of family planning and the empowerment of women.

Please join us in celebrating Earth Day on April 22nd. William Ryerson, President and Founder of Population Media Center will be available for interviews.

Population and Environment
Currently, there is a great deal of concern in the media, government, business, and general public regarding the issue of global warming. However, the impact of rapid human population growth on global warming is often overlooked. Decreasing consumption levels will not be enough if the human population continues to rise. The United Nations Population Division estimates that by the year 2050 the world population will reach 9.2 billion, with most of this increase occurring in the developing world. It is estimated that by 2050 over 50% of carbon emissions will come from developing nations. Not only does population growth significantly contribute to an increase in carbon emissions, but it creates a strain on other resources such as water, food, and energy.

Make the Link Between Population and Environment
For more information about population and environmental issues, PMC’s founder and president, William Ryerson, will be available for interviews. Mr. Ryerson has a four decade history of working in the fields of population and reproductive health. As a graduate student, he was Founder and first Chairperson of the Yale Chapter of Zero Population Growth (ZPG). He also served on the Executive Committee of ZPG, as Eastern Vice President and Secretary of the national organization. In 1970, he was featured in Life Magazine’s Earth Day issue organizing student activities on the Yale campus for the first Earth Day.

During the last two decades, he has been working to adapt the Sabido methodology of entertainment-education for behavior change on family planning and family size issues to various cultural settings worldwide. He has also been involved in the design of research to measure the effects of such projects in a number of countries, one of which has led to a series of publications regarding a serialized radio drama in Tanzania and its effects on HIV/AIDS avoidance and family planning use. He received a B.A. in Biology (Magna Cum Laude) from Amherst College and an M.Phil. in Biology from Yale University (with specialization in Ecology and Evolution). He served as Director of the Population Institute’s Youth and Student Division, Development Director of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, Associate Director of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, and Executive Vice President of Population Communications International before founding Population Media Center. Mr. Ryerson is listed in several editions of Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the East. In 2006, he was awarded the Nafis Sadik Prize for Courage from the Rotarian Action Group on Population and Development.

The HIV seroprevalence among women aged 15-24 years was compared according to their pattern of contraceptive use in four African countries: Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Data were derived from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted between 2003 and 2006 on representative samples, totaling 4549 women.

It is indicated that users of depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) have a significantly higher seroprevalence than nonusers [odds ratio (OR)=1.82, 95% CI=1.63-2.03] and higher than users of oral contraceptives and users of traditional methods. The results were confirmed in a multivariate analysis including as controls, age, duration since first intercourse, urban residence, education, number of sexual partners in the last 12 months and marital status.

For full article, visit:
http://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(08)00061-9/abstract

The first large-scale scientific test of family planning took place in Khanna, India, beginning in the early 1950s. Backed by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, researchers asked 8,000 villagers how often they had sex, whether they wanted to conceive and the details of the women’s menstrual cycles.

The researchers met the villagers monthly and provided contraceptives, while closely monitoring another group that was given no contraceptives. After five years, the women given contraceptives had a higher birth rate than those who hadn’t received any assistance.

For full article, visit:

http://www.nytimes.com

This study examines trends and differentials in key family planning indicators in 35 developing countries. The data are for countries with a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted between 2000 and 2005. Trends are provided for countries with at least one previous DHS survey.

The study investigates how knowledge of contraception and use of contraception have changed; whether public-private, urban-rural, and other differentials in contraceptive use have narrowed, and whether women are making informed decisions about the use of contraception. It also examines discontinuation and switching rates, and decision-making about family planning.

For full article, visit:
http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pub_details.cfm?id=736

There are over 200 videos available on-line on the following subjects: Reproductive Health, Fistula, Population and Development, Gender Equality, Humanitarian Response, Human Rights, Adolescents & Youth, Safe Motherhood, Culturally Sensitive Approaches, HIV/AIDS, Advocacy, Reproductive Health Commodities, International Conference on Population and Development.

For full article, visit:

http://video.unfpa.org/

MANILA - Twenty Manila women and men filed a case today in a Philippine high court against the mayor of Manila, arguing that the city’s eight-year ban on contraception has severely and irreparably damaged their lives and health and the majority of women in Manila City.

“This ban is yet another abhorrent example of a larger global trend lead by religiously motivated policymakers who adopt policies based on ideology instead of the health and well-being of the very people they are elected to serve,” said Melissa Upreti, senior legal advisor for Asia at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “If elected officials fail to do their duty and meet their human rights obligations, we will ask the courts to do it for them.”

For full article, visit:

http://www.reproductiverights.org/pr_08_0130FilipinoSueManila.html

The Muslim world has the world’s highest rate of population growth, and is involved in more armed conflicts (mainly along the interface between the Muslim- and non-Muslim worlds) than any other region of the world. Examples of conflict zones include Lebanon, Albania, Bosnia, Sarajevo, Serbia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Russia, Chechnya, Dagestan, the Caucasus, Pakistan, India, Burma, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Eritrea/ Ethiopia, Sudan and other northeast African countries, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Algeria.

However before one extrapolates the past into the future one should examine the changes that are taking place in the Muslim world in the area of fertilities, the status of women, and other evidence of slower rates of population growth in the decades to come. Evidence useful for such an examination is given in this document.

For full article, visit:

http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/muslim.html

This paper is taken from a much longer paper I wrote in the 1990s, with updated data in the table on page 2. It focuses on the fact that non-use of contraception by the 46 percent of the world’s married women who do not use modern contraceptives results primarily not from lack of access to supplies of family planning methods, but instead from cultural and informational barriers to use of existing supplies.

Even though use of family planning has grown from 10 percent of married women in 1960 to 54 percent today, the number of non-users exceeds the number of non-users in 1960 – because of population growth. During this 47-year period, the reason for non-use has shifted from lack of access to attitudinal factors. Clearly, “unmet need” is different from “unmet demand.” The paper makes the point that communication strategies are now central to recruiting additional users of family planning.

Unmet Need Lack of Access or Lack of Information (Word doc., 44 KB)

Ode Magazine
Issue 32

By Kim Ridley

Steamy tales of sex, betrayal and suspense can carry important social messages
Young and poor, Fikirte is in many ways Ethiopia’s Everywoman. Her life takes a turn for the worse when she meets Damtew, who is so obsessed with revenge against Fikirte’s innocent grandfather that he kills him and then begins to prey on her. He swindles Fikirte and seduces her half-sister, giving her HIV. He spreads vicious rumors to turn Fikirte’s family against her and to crush her dreams of finishing school. Still not satisfied, Damtew tries to murder Fikirte—twice.
Does Fikirte’s life sound like a soap opera? It is. The saga of Fikirte, Damtew, and the other captivating characters of Yeken Kignit (“Looking Over One’s Daily Life”) kept millions of Ethiopians glued to their radios for two and a half years. It also persuaded some of them to change their lives.
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