Public Health Institute

With so many women worldwide in need of access to adequate family planning and also simultaneously at risk of unplanned pregnancy, HIV or other STIs, making prevention tools that are safe, acceptable, affordable and widely available would greatly improve health and save resources.

Gathering Global Stories; Sharing Women's Wisdom

To help raise awareness around women's sexual and reproductive health needs, CAMI recently introduced the Global Reproductive Health Diaries. This online collection of real men and women's stories reaches out to people and organizations around the world, highlighting issues that impact sexual and reproductive rights and health, including the challenges to accessing prevention for STIs and family planning. To read the diaries, click here.

Coalition Advancing Multipurpose Innovations (CAMI)

CAMI has long recognized the need for prevention strategies that could address more than just one disease or reproductive health need. But the South Africa study results released at the international AIDS conference in July provided the first solid evidence that multipurpose prevention technologies are no longer hypothetical but are indeed possible. The time is ripe to promote prevention methods that will empower women and couples to protect themselves against HIV and other adverse sexual and reproductive health concerns.

To help mobilize resources that could propel women's prevention options, CAMI provides a platform for bio-tech developers, researchers, advocates and educators working in the sexual and reproductive health field to coordinate their efforts. This intersection of various disciplines is spurring new ways of thinking and innovations that could speed up delivery of prevention supplies and programs to the people who need them most.

As a key player in this emerging movement, CAMI is taking a lead role in a global initiative aimed at raising awareness of and support for new and existing approaches and tools that can be used to address multiple reproductive and sexual health needs. Led by Bethany Young Holt, PhD, MPH, CAMI serves as the host and facilitator for the Initiative for Multipurpose Prevention Technologies, a project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

PROMOTING SOLUTIONS FOR SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Ethiopian women participate in a condom demonstration

Ethiopian women participate in a
condom demonstration

Using social media like Facebook, CAMI serves as a resource and virtual convener, helping men, women and providers from all over the world connect and share information and personal experience around sexual and reproductive health. The online exchange helps build community and raise awareness of diverse cultural contexts and challenges, such as those of a midwife in Iran who recently shared that not everyone knows what a condom is.

With so many women worldwide in need of access to adequate family planning and also simultaneously at risk of unplanned pregnancy, HIV or other STIs, making prevention tools that are safe, acceptable, affordable and widely available would greatly improve health and save resources. The call for multipurpose prevention technologies is gaining momentum, and CAMI is poised to bring together researchers and funding to increase access to the benefits these tools can bring to women and communities around the world. The timing is ripe.

To learn more about CAMI or the Initiative for Multipurpose Prevention Technologies, visit http://www.cami-health.com/