Oppositional Collaboration

A remarkable collaboration of researchers across the political and religious spectrum invited Margaret Greene to join an effort examine and establish what is known about fertility awareness-based methods of family planning, sometimes sloppily referred to as “natural family planning.” The strategy of assembling this diverse team was an example of “oppositional collaboration,” which has been demonstrated to be effective and rigorous, and establishes a larger set of uses and applications for the research once it is completed.

The collaboration produced a systematic review of the evidence - Effectiveness of Fertility Awareness–Based Methods for Pregnancy Prevention - that won the Outstanding Research Paper Award for 2019 from the American Academy of FertilityCare Professionals. The team also produced a beautiful and powerfully informative infographic for those interested in quickly and intuitively understanding the study data.

The collaboration continued with a second paper on the Effectiveness of fertility awareness-based methods for pregnancy prevention during the postpartum period.

We are currently beginning the process of updating the original paper. This process seems especially important in light of the high degree of polarization in the US, which extends to the generation of evidence on sexual and reproductive health.