ArticleStudies in family planning2023
Assessing the Suitability of Unmet Need as a Proxy for Access to Contraception and Desire to Use It.
Article in Studies in family planning, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- "Do not leave me behind and do not put me in your box": family-planning access and care needs among women with migration histories in Berlin, Germany-a mixed-methods study.Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Contraceptive Alignment: A Descriptive Study of Concordance between Preferred and Actual Contraceptive Method Use.Studies in family planning · 2026Article
- [Unmet need for contraception in the racialized population in Colombia: analysis of the results of the 2015 National Demographic and Health Survey].Cadernos de saude publica · 2026Article
- Contraceptive access in displacement settings: a quantitative study of Syrians displaced to Türkiye.Sexual and reproductive health matters · 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
- Contraceptive Concordance.Studies in family planning · 2025Article
- Moving Past a Legacy of Controlling Women: Key Frameworks to Center Women and Girls' Choice and Agency in Sexual and Reproductive Health Measurement.Studies in family planning · 2025Article
- Patient Preferences or Provider Pressure? The Relationship Between Coercive Contraceptive Care and Preferred Contraceptive Use.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Measuring misaligned contraceptive use among reproductive-aged women in Kisumu, Kenya: a cross-sectional, population-based study.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Using the 5C Vaccine Hesitancy Framework to Elucidate and Measure Contraceptive Acceptability in sub-Saharan Africa.Global health, science and practice · 2024Article
- Relationship Dynamics and Young Women's Contraceptive Use.Sexuality research & social policy : journal of NSRC : SR & SP · 2024Article
- Attitudes toward sexual and reproductive health and rights and their associations with reproductive agency: a population-based cross-sectional study in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.Sexual and reproductive health matters · 2024Article
- Assessing Trends in the Desire to Avoid Pregnancy: A Cautionary Note.Studies in family planning · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Unmet need for contraception is a widely used but frequently misunderstood indicator. Although calculated from measures of pregnancy intention and current contraceptive use, unmet need is commonly used as a proxy measure for (1) lack of access to contraception and (2) desire to use it. Using data from a survey in Burkina Faso, we examine the extent to which unmet need corresponds with and diverges from these two concepts, calculating sensitivity, specificity, and positive/negative predictive values. Among women assigned conventional unmet need, 67 percent report no desire to use contraception and 61 percent report access to a broad range of affordable contraceptives. Results show unmet need has low sensitivity and specificity in differentiating those who lack access and/or who desire to use a method from those who do not. These findings suggest that unmet need is of limited utility to inform family planning programs and may be leading stakeholders to overestimate the proportion of women in need of expanded family planning services. We conclude that more direct measures are feasible at the population level, rendering the proxy measure of unmet need unnecessary. Where access to and/or desire for contraception are the true outcomes of interest, more direct measures should be used.
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Registered trials
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