Innovative futures for adolescent pregnancy prevention

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Myanmar, we're helping elicit a step change in responses to unintended pregnancy among girls and young women. Working with our Youth Labs in those countries, we’re exploring potential opportunities with contraceptive self-care strategies. This includes innovative approaches to accessing contraceptives beyond condoms. 

Practiced socially and culturally around the world for millennia, self-care maintains sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for people who:

• have limited or no access to formal healthcare
• live where access to health services is stigmatised. 

In 2022, the World Health Organization published guidelines that highlighted how self-care might enhance SRH.

According to these guidelines, SRH self-care interventions include “evidence-based, quality drugs, devices, diagnostics and/or digital technologies which can be provided fully or partially outside of formal health services and can be used with or without the support of a health worker”.

Alongside condom use, self-care recommendations include:

• access to self-administered, injectable contraception
• over-the-counter oral contraceptive pills and emergency contraceptive pills without a prescription
• provision of up to one year’s supply of oral contraceptive pills, supported by flexible resupply systems so women can obtain pills easily when required
• pregnancy self-testing.

SRH self-care for adolescents

Adolescent SRH self-care allows young people to:

• identify and assess their needs through relevant activities, capacities and interventions
• access and use appropriate health products and technologies
• seek support from health services and professionals as needed.

Effective SRH care for adolescent pregnancy prevention also requires innovation to:

• expand the range of contraceptive products available to young people beyond condoms
• identify and develop service, community or digital settings responsive to young people’s needs
• work within different societal circumstances that impact contraceptive requirements for girls, young women, boys and young men.

Focusing on adolescent pregnancy prevention, we’ll identify opportunities for innovation in:

• the range of modern contraceptives available to young people in PNG and Myanmar
• the mechanisms and policy contexts that affect how modern contraceptives are supplied and made accessible to young people in PNG.

Collaborating with young people from diverse settings as expert partners, we’re ensuring that innovation and progress aligns with how young people and women navigate their sexual and social lives.