Vital

News & commentary about the global health workforce

Political Support and Popular Opinion on the Largest-Ever Family Planning Conference: Part II

Changing opinions and behaviors around family planning in Senegal may happen slowly.

From Cairo to Dakar: Population Dynamics in Mali

Twenty years ago I arrived in Bamako, Mali, and discovered a capital city settling into relative calm following a military-led coup. My first images of Bamako were of cows, cars, and citizens grazing, grinding gears, and gridlocked on Bamako’s main artery through town—the Route de Koulikoro.

Advocating For Open Access: Information Has the Power to Save Lives

IntraHealth has long championed the importance of health workers and managers having open access to information, particularly in developing countries. Open access is a natural extension of that work.

IntraHealth Statement on Hormonal Contraception and HIV Risks

A recent article by Heffron and colleagues published in Lancet Infectious Diseases suggests that hormonal contraception may increase the risk of HIV acquisition among men and women two-fold.1 Given...

A North Carolinian Honors World Contraception Day

As a North Carolinian and an American, I have always had access to the contraception I needed throughout my life. I have used condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, pills, and the intrauterine device (IUD).

How—and When—Do You Tell a Child She is HIV-positive?

Telling a child she is HIV-positive is difficult in many ways.  

Last month, I was in Kigali, Rwanda, to give the keynote address at the 6th International Conference for Exchange and Research on HIV...

The Key to Progress: Health Workforce Lessons from the Family Planning Movement

One of the great privileges of my life has been to know bold leaders in family planning and reproductive health.

Community Health Workers: Meeting the Unmet Need for Family Planning in West and Central Africa

A recent New York Times article featured an updated United Nations forecast that projects the world’s population will reach 10.1 billion by the end of the century, rather than stabilizing at nine billion midcentury as previously predicted.

Where is the United States Government Going on 'Gender'?

I’ve been watching the ebb and flow of the gender equality movement for many years now. I’m glad to see that the ebbing, including the social backlash of the 1980s and the political chill of the 1990s, has been replaced by positive policy “flow”—if not flowering—in the U.S. government’s commitment to achieve gender equality in development assistance and diplomacy

What We Need to Change: See More Health Workers ‘Made in the U.S.A’

Every year, U.S. medical and nursing schools turn away tens of thousands of qualified applicants and thousands of American students instead study at overseas medical schools.