141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

294978
Lack of access to family planning drives inequity locally and globally


Monday, November 4, 2013 : 9:35 a.m. - 9:50 a.m.

Malcolm Potts, MB, PhD, FRCOG, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Couples do not ‘decide' to have a child; they ‘decide' to try and avoid another pregnancy. To do this they need access to family planning information and technology. Where the unjustified barriers to family planning have been removed (as in Family PACT in California or nationwide in Thailand) then differences in family size between economic quintiles largely disappear. Where such barriers are high (as in Mississippi or the Philippines) then the poor are unable to limit family size, maintaining and exaggerating social inequities.

As a result of the neglect of family planning, the population of the least developed countries is growing especially rapidly (2.8 to 6.1 billion by 2100). It is possible that in the second half of the 21st century rising death rates in the least developed countries could roll back many of the achievements in global health that have been made in the past 60 to 70 years.

This presentation will discuss impact of access to family planning on achieved family size, and the impact of family size on educational and economic progress, in the context of increasing inequity between the least developed countries and the rest of the world.

Learning Areas:

Advocacy for health and health education
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related public policy
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Explain the impact of access to family planning information and technology on achieved family size Discuss the impact of family size on educational and economic progress in the US and globally Discuss the adverse impact of increasing global inequity between the least developed countries and the rest of the world.

Keyword(s): Population, Family Planning

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Previous experience in discussing population and family planning including at APHA
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3043.0: International Maternal, Neonatal & Child Health