ArticlePopulation and development review2022
Supply-Side Versus Demand-Side Unmet Need: Implications for Family Planning Programs.
Article in Population and development review, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Implementation strategies, facilitators, and barriers to scaling up and sustaining demand generation in family planning, a mixed-methods systematic review.BMC women's health · 2023Pooled it
- Contraceptive Alignment: A Descriptive Study of Concordance between Preferred and Actual Contraceptive Method Use.Studies in family planning · 2026Article
- Temporal-spatial analysis and driving factors of coupling coordination between population and health services systems in China, 2010-2022.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Unplanned pregnancy and contraceptive use in humanitarian settings: the case of Syrian refugee women in Lebanon.Conflict and health · 2026Article
- Alleviating price and information barriers to long-acting contraception uptake in Kenyan pharmacies using patient and provider incentives: a cluster randomized control trial.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Article
- Rethinking family planning success metrics: moving beyond coverage.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Article
- Contraceptive access in displacement settings: a quantitative study of Syrians displaced to Türkiye.Sexual and reproductive health matters · 2025Article
- 'When they force a woman, it's to save her life': Gendered vulnerability and contraceptive coercion.Journal of critical public health · 2025Article
- Challenges and opportunities in coordinating investments across countries and channels to expand access to a new contraceptive method.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Measuring Unmet Need for Contraception Using a Person-Centered Algorithm: An Application With a Community-Based Sample of Married Rohingya Women in Bangladesh.Studies in family planning · 2025Article
- The State of Person-Centered Measurement for Family Planning Need and Use: A Scoping Review.Studies in family planning · 2025Article
- [Un]met Need and [Un]wanted Family Planning: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Women in Argentina, Ghana, and India Examining Characteristics, Reasons, and Alignment With Fertility Desires.Studies in family planning · 2025Article
- Development and Validation of the Agency in Contraceptive Decisions Scale in Uganda and Nigeria.Studies in family planning · 2025Article
- Contraceptive Use and Discontinuation Among Adolescent Women in 55 Low- and Middle-Income Countries.Demography · 2025Article
- Thirty years after the Cairo declaration on population & development: have family planning measurements caught up?Frontiers in global women's health · 2025Article
- What drives inequality in modern family planning use among urban women residents? A cross-sectional analysis using the inequality of opportunity framework in Uganda's secondary cities.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Measuring misaligned contraceptive use among reproductive-aged women in Kisumu, Kenya: a cross-sectional, population-based study.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Unmet need for contraception? Understanding postpartum family planning desires and use in Kumasi, Ghana.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Despite its central importance to global family planning, the "unmet need for contraception" metric is frequently misinterpreted. Often conflated with a lack of access, misinterpretation of what unmet need means and how it is measured has important implications for family planning programs. We review previous examinations of unmet need, with a focus on the roles of access and demand for contraception, as well as the role of population control in shaping the indicator's priorities. We suggest that disaggregating unmet need into "demand-side unmet need" (stemming from lack of demand) and "supply-side unmet need" (stemming from lack of access) could allow current data to be leveraged into a more person-centered understanding of contraceptive need. We use Demographic and Health Survey data from seven sub-Saharan African countries to generate a proof-of-concept, dividing women into unmet need categories based on reason for contraceptive nonuse. We perform sensitivity analyses with varying conceptions of access and disaggregate by education and marital status. We find that demand-side unmet need far exceeds supply-side unmet need in all scenarios. Focusing on supply-side rather than overall unmet need is an imperfect but productive step toward person-centered measurement, while more sweeping changes to family planning measurement are still required.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.