What are Research Practice Supports?

The Society of Family Planning’s Research Practice Supports are peer-reviewed publications that are designed to provide concrete and actionable recommendations to family planning researchers around challenging areas of research practice.

Research Practice Supports are led by groups of authors who serve as thought leaders, pooling their expertise and perspectives, and offering an enduring resource to the family planning community. Research Practice Supports are published in Contraception, the official journal of the Society.

Why are these documents important?

Family planning researchers experience many similar challenges in the production of their research, yet there are limited opportunities to share advice and best practices in a discoverable way. Research Practice Supports provide these researchers with information that can improve their research practice and enhance their growth as scholars at all career levels. These documents are in service of the Society’s goal to support the production of research primed for impact.

Published Research Practice Supports

• Approaching the concepts of gender and sex in family planning research
• Strategies and considerations for addressing race and racism in quantitative family planning studies

Upcoming Research Practice Supports

The following documents are currently in progress and will be available on this page once they are published.

• Community-engaged research, sexual and reproductive health, research methods
• Conducting sexual and reproductive health research in minor adolescents: Considerations for researchers and Institutional Review Board reviewers
• Conceptualizing and representing complexity in abortion care
• Data security for abortion research in a post-Dobbs era
• Options for defining medication abortion care across the formal and informal care ecosystem

New Research Practice Supports seeking authors:

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Suggest topics for future Research Practice Supports.

Research Committee

The Society’s Research Committee oversees Research Practice Supports by prioritizing topics and reviewing and approving each document before it is submitted for publication.

Author instructions

Guidance for authors and those interested in learning more about the Research Practice Support development process can be found in our author instructions.