Throughout the world, Merck has partnered with organizations and supported projects that aim to increase women's access to health services, reduce maternal mortality, increase awareness of reproductive/sexual health among adolescents and vulnerable populations, prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, and promote women's empowerment and access to economic opportunities.

Improving access to information is essential to ensuring that girls and women can manage their health, reduce unintended pregnancies, and understand and access essential health services. Merck supports various programs and partnerships that provide health education and increase awareness around the world.

Reaching Out to Young People: U Choose and Improsexual

Teen pregnancies put young mothers and their children at risk. The children of teen mothers suffer from higher rates of stillbirths, deaths in the first weeks of life, preterm births, low birth weights and asphyxia. Ninety-five percent of births among women ages 15 to 19 occur in low- and middle-income countries. Fourteen percent of all unsafe abortions in low- and middle-income countries are among women of this age group. Pregnant adolescents also experience high rates of anemia, malaria, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, postpartum hemorrhage and mental disorders, such as depression.

U Ch00se Campaign: Since 2009, Merck has supported the U Ch00se Campaign in Bulgaria to support a national awareness and prevention campaign on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), targeted at young people (ages 11-26), to provide information on sexual and reproductive health and healthy lifestyles through multichannel communication tools, including peer education. Through the U Ch00se Campaign, more than 3,000 young people have been reached through the awareness educational sessions and concerts in the schools. Additionally, the Campaign has made approximately 430,000 contacts with young people through extensive media outreach. The U ChOOse campaign is managed by the Association of Cancer Patients and Friends APOZ (or APOZ), a Bulgarian NGO, in coalition with other local groups and organizations.

Improsexual Venezuela: According to UNFPA, Venezuela has the highest rate of teen pregnancies in South America, and more than 20 percent of births are to women under 20. The organization Improsexual uses theater, music, art, and story telling to inform young people and help them take control of their reproductive and sexual health through interactive and dynamic improvisational theater.

For more information on other adolescent-education focused interventions that seek to improve sexual and reproductive health, and reduce unintended pregnancies and transmission of STDs, including HIV, please visit our HIV Partnership section.

Providing Information about Women's Health

Global Library of Women's Medicine (GLOWM) is designed to provide medical professionals worldwide with universal access to a vast and constantly updated, peer-reviewed resource of clinical information and guidance covering the whole field of women's medicine. GLOWM receives two million hits monthly from 160 countries.

Understanding Women's Reproductive Health Needs

Merck is supporting Mahidol University in Thailand to conduct research to better understand Thai women's reproductive health needs and barriers to access (e.g., limited access to cervical cancer screening).

Fighting Maternal Mortality

The Drishtee Foundation works to reduce maternal mortality in India by educating women and their families about causes of maternal deaths and facilitating access to maternal health services through village Drishtee Health Kiosks. During 2009-2010, the Drishtee Maternal Health Program successfully trained 25 maternal healthcare workers to help improve access to services and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.

Expanding Access to Care

Jhpiego is an international nonprofit health organization affiliated with The Johns Hopkins University working to prevent the needless deaths of women and their families. Jhpiego works with health experts, governments and community leaders to provide high-quality healthcare for their people. Jhpiego develops strategies to help countries care for themselves by training competent healthcare workers, strengthening health systems and improving delivery of care.

One of Jhpiego's key strategies for ensuring increased uptake of family planning (FP) services among the urban poor is to offer routine integrated health camps in poor urban neighborhoods in Kenya that lack access to quality healthcare services. In some past camps, hundreds of women have accessed FP services in a single day. One major component of the integrated health camp is a Health Wagon (a mobile clinic) offering a clean and private environment for clients. Integrated health camps, with a Health Wagon present, will offer the full range of FP methods, as well as counseling to all clients about their FP options in complete privacy. With 9 Merck-sponsored health camps, approximately 9,000 people will be offered FP information and services on short-term methods. An additional 450 people will accept long-acting and permanent methods at the health camps.

The health camps, in Jhpiego's experience, bridge the "community-clinic divide." To help address deficiencies in the health workforce in Kenya, Jhpiego will also use the Health Wagon as a mechanism to provide on-the-job training and other updates for providers who work in urban healthcare facilities that may not offer a full range of RH/FP services.

Economic Empowerment to Help Women

Join My Village is an innovative, online social change initiative that seeks to empower women and girls in the developing world. It is facilitated by the humanitarian organization CARE with financial support from Merck and General Mills. Join My Village leverages the collective power of individuals to click, text or view content about the lives of people in some of the poorest communities in the world, subsequently triggering charitable donations from corporate foundations. The goal is to inspire people to click, become more aware, and be a part of the solution to help end poverty around the world. In the first year, Merck and General Mills donated approximately $1 million to Join My Village, touching the lives of more than 2,000 families in Malawi, Africa.