{"doi":"10.1016/j.dialog.2024.100168","title":"Examining the association between men's gender equitable attitudes and contraceptive outcomes in rural Maharashtra, India","abstract":"Previous literature suggests that men reporting more gender-equitable attitudes are more likely to use condoms, but there is a paucity of data evaluating whether these attitudes are associated with contraceptive communication and use. The objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that men reporting more gender-equitable attitudes will be more likely to (a) engage in contraceptive communication with their wives and (b) that they and/or their wives will be more likely to use all forms of family planning, compared to men with less equitable attitudes. Using cross-sectional dyadic survey data from young married couples from rural Maharashtra, India (N = 989), we assessed the associations between men's gender role attitudes and a) spousal contraceptive communication and b) contraceptive use by type (none, traditional, condoms, pills, or IUD). The contraceptive use outcome is based on wives' report. We assessed these associations via bivariate t-test (communication outcome) or ANOVA test (contraceptive type outcome), as well as unadjusted and adjusted logistic (communication outcome) and multinomial logistic (contraceptive type outcome) regression models. Adjusted models included sociodemographic factors selected a priori based on established associations with gender-equitable attitudes and/or our assessed outcomes. Men with more gender-equitable attitudes were more likely to discuss family planning with their wives (AOR = 1·05, 95%CI 1·03-1·07, p < 0·001) and to use condoms (ARRR = 1·03, 95%CI 1·00-1·06, p = 0·07). There was no association between gender-equitable attitudes and use of other types of contraception. While gender-equitable attitudes among men may facilitate condom use and family planning communication in marriage, they do not appear to be linked with greater likelihood of use of more effective types of contraceptive use. This suggests that males supportive of gender equity may take greater responsibility for family planning vis a vis a less effective contraceptive, condoms, in the absence of more effective short-acting contraceptives for men. The National Institutes of Health [Grant number 5R01HD084453-01A1] and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number INV-002967]. Evidence before this study Researchers have long recognized the importance of engaging men in family planning, in ways that are supportive and respectful of their female partners. Interventions which aim to improve gender-related norms and attitudes are one key strategy for male engagement, with the assumption that more equitable norms will lead to greater support for contraceptive communication and use. We searched PubMed for peer-reviewed articles reporting on ‘masculinity’ or ‘gender’ ‘norms’ or ‘attitudes’ and ‘contraceptive use’ or ‘contraceptive communication’ (and related key terms). We found extensive research from the field of HIV indicating that greater masculinity norms and attitudes are associated with lower male condom use, and that gender-transformative interventions that target restrictive masculinity norms are effective in increasing male condom use. Prior studies from India have also shown that men's attitudes about gender equity are positively associated with condom use to prevent HIV. However, there was little research examining associations between men's reported gender attitudes and other types of contraceptives, condom use for contraceptive reasons, or contraceptive communication with partners. Added value of this study. This is the first study to our knowledge to examine men's gender equitable attitudes and their association with contraceptive use (for many times of contraception) and contraceptive communication with their partners. We find that more gender equitable attitudes were associated with greater condom use and greater contraceptive communication, but found no association with other forms of contraceptive use. Implications of all the available evidence. Our study, along with prior evidence, sugge","journal":"Dialogues in Health","year":2024,"id":441787,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9539,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":304314,"name":"Anvita Dixit","orcid":"0000-0002-6155-8628","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":42886,"name":"Nicole E. Johns","orcid":"0000-0003-4513-4582","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":403583,"name":"Madhusudana Battala","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":402593,"name":"Shahina Begum","orcid":"0000-0001-5590-2210","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285179,"name":"Sarah Averbach","orcid":"0000-0002-1924-7770","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1167778,"name":"Jay G. Silverman","orcid":"0000-0003-4295-3734","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":733650,"name":"Niranjan Saggurti","orcid":"0000-0002-5267-8425","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304316,"name":"Anita Raj","orcid":"0000-0002-8127-5123","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":402594,"name":"Mohan Ghule","orcid":"0000-0003-3403-4156","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":38,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:01:11.152920Z","pmid":"38516219","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}