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Measuring Unmet Need in Family Planning: A Counterfactual Approach

A new working paper on the concept of unmet need for family planning, where I propose a new approach to more effectively measure it with routine data.

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Press & Media

Karra Publishes Article on Measurement of Unmet Need for Contraception

Mahesh Karra, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the School’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), has published an article in Studies in Family Planning (SFP) on the measurement of unmet need  Up to 215 million women, or 26 percent of […]

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Karra Appointed Editor of “Studies in Family Planning”

The Population Council has announced that Mahesh Karra, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the School’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), will serve as an editor of its Studies in Family Planning (SFP) research journal.  SFP publishes public health, social science, and biomedical research with […]

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Karra Presents Research on Impact of Family Planning Interventions

On July 13, 2022, Mahesh Karra, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Associate Director of the Human Capital Initiative at the School’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), spoke at the Population Reference Bureau’s (PRB) Demography Talk on family planning interventions and how research and data on […]

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The Causal Impact of Family Planning on Women’s Contraceptive Use and Birth Spacing

Intervals of less than 24 months between pregnancies and births can adversely affect maternal and child health, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. While studies suggest that improving access to family planning services may also improve women’s contraceptive use and reduce fertility, high-quality evidence of the effect of family planning interventions on longer-term fertility and birth spacing […]

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Brulé and Karra Reflect on the State of Human Capital Development

Rachel Brulé, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, and 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), both offered […]

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Karra Presents at Population Association of America’s Annual Meeting

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, presented a number of research projects at the Population Association of America’s Annual Meeting. Karra presented finding of his own recently released research as […]

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