Karra Article Details Impact of Improved Access to Family Planning

Mahesh Karra, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on detailing the first results from the Malawi Family Planning Study. 

In the article, titled “The causal effect of a family planning intervention on women’s contraceptive use and birth spacing,” Karra and his coauthors present findings from a randomized controlled trial that assessed the impact of improved access to family planning on contraceptive use and pregnancy spacing in Lilongwe, Malawi. They found that contraceptive use after two years of intervention exposure increased by 5.8% and that the intervention group’s hazard of pregnancy was 43.5% lower 24 months after their initial birth. The results highlight the positive impact of increased access to family planning on women’s contraceptive use.

The full article can be read on PNAS’ website.

Mahesh Karra’s academic and research interests are broadly in development economics, health economics, quantitative methods, and applied demography. His research utilizes experimental and non-experimental methods to investigate the relationships between population, health, and economic development in low- and middle-income countries. Read more about Professor Karra on his faculty profile.

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