In this issue we publish several articles to demonstrate how researchers impact social policy, practice, and the autonomous decisions of women regarding preventing or encouraging births. Publishing these studies is important. Without them women's health issues are embroiled in politics sans knowledge.
Marshall Medoff notes that arguments concerning abortion policy are often framed in passion without empirical evidence. Good evidence to support political arguments is scarce. While he rightly reminds us that correlational data do not prove causation, and that his study is limited to the United States, there is now empirical evidence on 18 indicators of infant/child health, family, economic, and educational status to support a political argument AND the research hypothesis that restricting abortion will not lead to government success in protecting a fetus after its birth.
In Brazil, another country with restrictive abortion policies, Ana Luiza Vilela Borges and co-authors conducted a nationally representative survey of women in households to learn how having had an abortion may influence later contraceptive decisions. The authors suggest that in Brazil women are more influenced by whether or not contraception requires a visit to health professionals than they are by their abortion history.
Illustrating how culture makes a difference in the experience of infertility, Syeda Shadida Batool and Richard Oliver de Visser provide qualitative data in the form of in-depth interviews. I hope that their data will influence culturally sensitive practice decisions.
Robinson and colleagues exemplify how researchers using a mixed methods design provide evidence on a myriad of issues on access and use of intrauterine devices. When others adopt similar research designs we will better understand the complexity surrounding contraceptive decisions.
Evidence by Stokes and colleagues also has important implications for scholars. In addition to making a theoretical contribution about the relationships between different power dimensions and condom use, they demonstrate why both men and women must be included in studies of contraceptive use.
In two articles authors present evidence for consideration on the use of skilled birth attendants. While to scholars it may seem obvious that distance to health facilities would be a predictor of both access to facilities and use of skilled attendants in those facilities, I believe that the publication of the empirical data by Ettarh and Kimani may be used to influence social policy decisions in Kenya to create more locations to access skilled birth attendants. I am impressed as a gerontologist with Rudrum's work in Uganda, as she demonstrates the contribution of older women as traditional birth attendants. While more formally trained birth attendants may have better skills in the future, there simply aren't enough of them in Kenya and Uganda.
Each study alone is a baby step toward knowledge. Let's take more such steps.
Eleanor Krassen Covan, PhD, Editor-in-Chief
January 11, 2016