World Population Day: Health dept to organise events to raise awareness

As part of World Population Day celebrations on July 11, the state health department will organise awareness campaigns and counselling programmes.

The programmes are divided into two categories — mobilisation fortnight from June 27 to July 10, and population stabilisation fortnight from July 11 to 24 — based on guidelines from the union health ministry.

During the mobilisation fortnight, awareness on family planning will be generated through mass media and digital platforms with a focus on messages such as delaying the age of marriage, healthy spacing between births, male participation in family planning, and postpartum and post-abortion family planning.

ASHAs may be mobilised for counselling and door-to-door delivery of contraceptives. Also, vans will be arranged at the district and block levels to go from village to village, spreading the message of family planning.

Officials at various levels are expected to organise meetings and chalk out activities.

During the population stabilisation fortnight, people will be counselled about family planning options available to them, and the district authorities will prepare a calender for service provisioning by various teams.

According to a press release from the department, the availability of contraceptives at all types of government health facilities would be ensured. Between 2020-21 and 2022-23, the department provided sterilisation services to over nine lakh women and 2,168 men. And another 14 lakh people opted for temporary sterilisation methods such as condoms, oral contraceptives and injections.

As per data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), Karnataka had a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.7. There was an unmet need for contraception among 6.5% of women. Also, sterilisation rates were high among women at 57.4%, but nil among men.