Welcome from Professor Amy Tsui

One of the top public health achievements in modern history, family planning has been widely adopted by individuals as a protective health measure. Being able to time and space births enables more than 500 million couples today, up from 70 million in the mid-1960s, to invest their resources productively and grow the wealth of communities and nations.

Access to family planning and other reproductive health services is often inequitable across countries and within their populations. The result of this inequity can be adverse consequences of unplanned pregnancies, such as the deaths of mothers and  newborns, HIV infection, and preventable and unsafe abortions. Access to family planning cannot be taken for granted.

This conference will bring together many to share the latest findings from family planning research and practice and advance the field and wellbeing of populations around the world.

Amy Tsui, PhD, is the director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, as well as a professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health.