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Team Shares Novel Tools to Explore Data on Contraceptive Use

By Celia Mizelle ’19 and Saumya Sao ’20

Our Bass Connections Big Data for Reproductive Health (BD4RH) team is working on novel ways to visualize contraceptive calendar data collected by the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program. As part of the Duke Center for Global Reproductive Health, our interdisciplinary group of researchers has created online, user-friendly tools to promote accessibility of this important but underutilized data. We aim to facilitate its use by researchers, program implementers and advocates.

• Dr. Finnegan describes the importance of better understanding contraceptive discontinuation. One-third of women who begin using a modern method of contraception in low-income countries discontinue within the first year, and half within the first two years, putting them at risk for unintended pregnancies as well as maternal morbidity and mortality.
Amy Finnegan describes the importance of better understanding contraceptive discontinuation. One-third of women who begin using a modern method of contraception in low-income countries discontinue within the first year, and half within the first two years, putting them at risk for unintended pregnancies as well as maternal morbidity and mortality.

On March 22, we traveled with team leaders Dr. Amy Finnegan and Kelly Hunter and our fellow undergraduate team members Nicole Rapfogel, Molly Paley and Daisy Fang to the DHS Program office in Rockville, Maryland to meet with key stakeholders who collect and use the contraceptive calendar data.

Chord diagram.
Snapshot of the interactive chord diagram tool, displaying a change in contraceptive injection use from January 2009 to July 2009. The trajectory of individuals using contraceptive injections in January is described by the arcs: some users switch to contraceptive implants, some continue using injections and others discontinued use of a method entirely.

We shared novel approaches to visualizing the calendar data. Specifically, a chord diagram tool shows how contraceptive users flow from one method during a selected starting month to non-use (contraceptive discontinuation) or a different method (contraceptive switching). We also shared a tool that displays trends of contraceptive prevalence and discontinuation over time and allows users to view differences in rates based on a variety of sociodemographic and geographic variables.

• Undergraduates Celia Mizelle and Saumya Sao explain how the team uses a color gradient to indicate contraceptive effectiveness. They walk the audience through a tutorial of the chord diagram visualization tool.
Celia Mizelle and Saumya Sao explain how the team uses a color gradient to indicate contraceptive effectiveness, and walk the audience through a tutorial of the chord diagram visualization tool.

Dr. Finnegan also discussed the use of big data analytics to provide fresh insights into the data and shared preliminary results from an unsupervised machine learning model her team has created to better understand contraceptive trajectories.

The team discussed potential opportunities for collaboration with DHS technical staff, the Track20 project and Avenir Health—groups working to facilitate use of the data to inform research and programmatic efforts worldwide. The meeting highlighted areas of potential future development for the BD4RH team, including ideas for new data visualization tools and connections to ground-level stakeholders and program managers who might use the data in their work.

• Team leaving Rockville, Maryland after successful meeting with DHS.
Team leaving Rockville, Maryland after successful meeting with DHS

In addition to our presentation at the DHS Program, members of our team gave a poster presentation at the 2018 International Conference on Family Planning in Kigali, Rwanda. We will also present at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in Austin, and the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Vancouver.

Join Us for a Local Stakeholder Meeting on April 19

If you are interested in learning more about the BD4RH team’s data visualization techniques as well as updates from the meeting about contraceptive calendar data accessibility, consider attending our local stakeholder meeting on Friday, April 19, from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. in Trent Hall. Breakfast will be served. RSVP.  

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