About CECA

Mission

CECA is a convener of committed partners working to ensure access to contraception as part of a broader vision to achieve sexual and reproductive health equity (SRHE) for the U.S.

Vision

We envision a world where all people have what they need to attain their ideal level of sexual and reproductive health. This includes all people having equitable and universal access to high-quality, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, services, and information.

Goals

  • We foster collaboration.

    We cultivate, connect, and maintain a strong network of diverse partners to achieve shared goals.

  • We synthesize and develop evidence.

    We analyze current evidence, identify gaps, and chart a path forward to inform and advance equitable public policy and practice. We collaborate with partners to plan, carry out, and disseminate new research.

  • We create policy change and expand access to care.

    We leverage government policies and processes and set the stage for implementation efforts, with specific focus on expanding equitable access to contraception across the country.

  • We change the conversation.

    We ensure that efforts to expand access to contraception are grounded in the principles of reproductive justice. We host discussions, publish written work, and offer tailored guidance about how to integrate SRHE in contraceptive access work.

Our work is anchored in a commitment to sexual and reproductive health equity (SRHE).

SRHE means that systems ensure that all people, across the range of age, gender, race, and other intersectional identities, have what they need to attain their highest level of sexual and reproductive health. This includes self-determining and achieving their reproductive goals. 

Government policy, healthcare systems, and other structures must value and support everyone fairly and justly. 

Our Team

We are a team of sexual and reproductive health experts who have dedicated their careers to ensuring that people can access quality contraceptive care when, where, and how they need it.

Our Partners

CECA partner groups represent a broad range of settings and disciplines, from reproductive justice organizations, to care providers, to public health experts.

Our Approach

Perform Initial Analysis
Conduct scoping conversations and environmental scans to understand
current evidence and needs.

Gather Expert Input
Host technical expert panels, lived
experience panels, workgroups
and summits to ensure a collaborative process.

Support Implementation
Engage key audiences, develop messaging,
and disseminate through partner
outreach and implementation.

Develop Recommendations
Synthesize all findings, develop recommendations,
vet and refine based
on key input, and disseminate.

  • The CECA Conveners have dedicated their careers to ensuring that people can access quality contraception when, where, and how they need it.

    The CECA Conveners have experience guiding sexual and reproductive health policy at the highest levels of the federal government, providing reproductive health care first-hand in the clinical setting, conducting research, and bringing together diverse public and private stakeholders to build consensus and use evidence and expert opinion to guide program and policy decisions. Learn more about our team.

  • CECA is made up of five key partnership groups including our core members, advisory board, stakeholders, technical experts, and we the conveners.

    Our partners include maternal and child health, primary care, and reproductive health providers and professional organizations that represent a broad range of settings and disciplines; state and local health departments; reproductive justice organizations; public health and health systems experts; communities; and researchers. Learn more about our partners.

  • In addition to collaborating with our Core Members and Advisory Board, CECA partners with stakeholders who represent a broad range of settings and disciplines through convening Technical Expert Panels (TEPs), workgroups, and Lived Experience Panels (LEPs). We also support the broader field through participating in coalitions, workgroups, and other project-based gatherings.

  • Sign up to receive our email updates and visit our blog regularly for updates. If you have research you would like us to review, or ideas about how CECA can best expand contraceptive access, you can send us an email at ceca@contraceptiveaccess.org.

  • As conveners, subject matter experts, and committed partners, CECA plays a unique role in fostering innovative, equity-informed SRH research. We are committed to integrating and modeling values of SRHE in our research collaborations, outputs, and innovation. We contribute to SRH research by:

    • Synthesizing and amplifying existing and emerging evidence on contraceptive access, examining the implications of the existing evidence, and identifying gaps.

    • Fostering and advancing opportunities to develop innovative, responsive SRH research.

    • Convening and collaborating with researchers, policymakers, and other partners to plan and conduct research.

    • Integrating research into policy and practice.

    • Cultivating and disseminate-ing knowledge through ongoing information exchanges.

 Frequently Asked Questions

  • CECA’s Technical Expert Panels (TEPs) are forums where we convene our core members, stakeholders, and other experts to share expertise, evidence, promising practices, and recommendations.

    Each TEP focuses on a specific topic, including funding strategies, reproductive health equity, performance measures, and clinical and programmatic guidelines.

  • LEPs are semi-structured discussions with community members intended to gather valuable, expert insights on a range of topics. In our work at CECA, community is defined as people who use or would like to use contraception, with a particular focus on people who experience barriers to receiving the care they want and have experienced mistreatment in past and present.

    For CECA, LEPs are a vital way to gather important and diverse insights from the real experts in contraceptive care – the people seeking that care. By centering community voices, the LEPs are a way of bringing these voices authentically and meaningfully alongside other sources of evidence like technical experts and academic literature, all of which enable CECA to devise appropriate and workable solutions.

  • SRHE means that systems ensure that all people, across the range of age, gender, race, and other intersectional identities, have what they need to attain their highest level of sexual and reproductive health. This includes self-determining and achieving their reproductive goals. Government policy, healthcare systems, and other structures must value and support everyone fairly and justly.

  • Contraception includes evidence-based, non-coercive contraceptive care and the full range of contraceptive methods.

    Quality is based on the Institute of Medicine (IOM)’s domains of health care quality. Health care should be:

    • Safe: avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.

    • Effective: providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit, and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit.

    • Patient-centered: providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.

    • Timely: reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.

    • Efficient: avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.

    • Equitable: providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status.

  • Universal, equitable contraceptive access means that all people who want contraception can get the contraceptive information, products, methods, and/or services that work best for them – when, how, and where they want it, free of barriers and bias.

    Contraception, along with evidence-based, comprehensive, non-coercive contraceptive care, is part of routine healthcare and should be accessible to all people for any reason.