Contraception

Podcast 2 — In conversation

Speaker A: The health platform needs to cover contraception comprehensively — different methods, effectiveness rates, side effects, and how to access them.

Speaker B: Comprehensive contraception information is one of the most accessed areas of any health platform. People need accurate, non-judgmental information about the full range of options, not just the most common ones.

Speaker A: Contraception access remains deeply unequal globally. In many low-income countries, unmet need for contraception is still very high.

Speaker B: Unmet need for contraception is the public health metric — the gap between the number of people who want to avoid pregnancy and those with access to effective contraception. Closing that gap has direct effects on maternal mortality, infant mortality, and women's economic outcomes.

Speaker A: Emergency contraception is sometimes confused with the abortion pill — they're completely different.

Speaker B: Critical distinction. Emergency contraception — the morning-after pill — prevents fertilisation or implantation. It works before pregnancy is established. The abortion pill terminates an established pregnancy. They act at completely different biological stages and are governed by different regulatory frameworks.

Speaker A: People sometimes confuse contraception and birth control.

Speaker B: Birth control is the broader term — it can include contraception, abstinence, and in some historical uses even post-fertilisation methods. Contraception specifically refers to methods that prevent conception or the establishment of a pregnancy. In modern usage the terms are often used interchangeably, but contraception is more clinical and precise.

Speaker A: And don't confuse contraception with sterilisation. Sterilisation is a permanent surgical procedure — vasectomy or tubal ligation — that results in permanent inability to conceive. It is a form of contraception but irreversible; most contraceptive methods are reversible and the distinction matters enormously in clinical and counselling contexts.

Podcast 3 — Prompt engineering

Speaker B: Scenario one — a health information content prompt.

Write structured content for a contraception comparison tool on a sexual health platform. For each of the following contraceptive methods — combined oral pill, progestogen-only pill, copper IUD, hormonal IUD, implant, condom, and emergency contraception — provide: method category, typical use effectiveness percentage, perfect use effectiveness percentage, how it works in one sentence, key advantages, key disadvantages, and whether it protects against sexually transmitted infections. Present in a JSON structure suitable for a comparison table component.

Speaker B: Typical use versus perfect use effectiveness is the critical distinction in contraception information — most failures occur with typical use, not perfect use, and users need realistic expectations.

Speaker A: STI protection flag is the field that prevents a common misunderstanding — only barrier methods such as condoms protect against STIs; hormonal contraception does not.

Speaker B: Next — a clinical database prompt.

Create a PostgreSQL schema for a sexual and reproductive health clinic management system. Tables: patients, consultations, contraception_prescriptions, contraception_methods, follow_up_schedule. contraception_methods stores method_name, method_category enum barrier, hormonal, intrauterine, permanent, emergency, typical_effectiveness_percent, and requires_prescription boolean. contraception_prescriptions stores patient_id, consultation_id, method_id, prescribed_at, review_due_date, and contraindications_noted text. follow_up_schedule stores prescription_id, scheduled_date, follow_up_type enum routine, side_effect_review, method_change, and attended boolean.

Speaker B: Review_due_date on each contraception prescription is the clinical follow-up trigger — different methods require different review intervals, and missing reviews is a patient safety risk.

Speaker B: Third — a public health analytics prompt.

Design a public health dashboard for contraception access monitoring in a regional health authority. The dashboard shows: contraception uptake rates by method and by age group (16 to 19, 20 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44), geographic variation in long-acting reversible contraception uptake across local authority areas, rates of unintended pregnancy as a proxy for unmet contraception need, and barriers to contraception access identified from patient survey data. Highlight areas with the highest unmet need for targeted outreach.

Speaker A: Unintended pregnancy rate as a proxy for unmet contraception need is the epidemiological indicator — it reveals where contraception access or knowledge is insufficient.

Speaker B: Fourth — a patient decision-support prompt.

Build a contraception decision-support tool for a GP practice patient portal. The tool asks the patient a structured set of questions: age, whether they have completed their family, medical history flags (smoking, hypertension, migraine with aura, breastfeeding, previous DVT), preferred method characteristics (daily pill vs long-acting, hormonal vs non-hormonal), and STI risk level. Based on responses, the tool generates a personalised list of suitable contraceptive options ranked by fit, with each option's effectiveness and key considerations. The list is shared with the GP before the consultation.

Speaker B: Medical history flags as contraindication screening is the clinical safety layer — combined hormonal contraception is contraindicated in several conditions, and a decision-support tool must screen for these before recommending methods.

Speaker B: Fifth — an education content prompt.

Write a 200-word history of contraception for a reproductive health education platform. Cover: evidence of contraception use in ancient Egypt and Greece, the role of condom development in the 18th and 19th centuries, the political opposition to contraception information in the early 20th century including the Comstock Laws in the US and similar restrictions in the UK, the development of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1950s and its approval in 1960, and the ongoing global picture of contraception access inequality.

Speaker A: The Comstock Laws as the political opposition context explains why contraception access was a political struggle in the 20th century before it became accepted public health — access was criminalised in the US as recently as the 1960s.

Speaker B: Sixth — a full small app.

Build a single-page web app called Contraception Companion — an evidence-based contraceptive method explorer. The app presents 8 common contraceptive methods with cards showing: method name, visual icon, effectiveness rating as a bar, duration of protection, reversibility, and hormone-free flag. User can filter by: hormone-free only, long-acting only, and no prescription required. Tapping a card expands to show a full description, how it works, pros, cons, and a note that this is educational information and not a substitute for clinical advice.

Speaker A: Clear note that the tool is educational and not a substitute for clinical advice is the responsible design element — a contraception explorer should direct users to appropriate healthcare providers for personal guidance.

Speaker B: That's the lesson — contraception works against conception. Its history is the history of reproductive autonomy: who has access, who is denied it, and what difference access makes to health and life outcomes. Designing systems that handle contraception data and information well is designing systems that take reproductive healthcare seriously.

Speaker B: Prompt example: