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The Washington, D.C. Female Condom initiative is a unique demonstration project which aims to increase awareness, understanding, and use of the female condom, an underutilized HIV and STI prevention method. Funded by the M∙A∙C AIDS Fund, this public-private partnership aims to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission in the District of Columbia.

The Washington AIDS Partnership leads this initiative, in collaboration with the D.C. Department of Heath’s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STI, and TB Administration (HAHSTA); the Female Health Company; CVS/Pharmacy; and five local community partners: Calvary Healthcare, Metro TeenAIDS, Our Place D.C., Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, and the Women’s Collective. These community partners provide in-depth education about and access to female condoms for women and their partners.

The female condom is similar to the male condom in efficacy and reliability. According to a World Health Organization study, male and female condoms are close to equivalent in preventing unintended pregnancies:
  • 94 – 98% effectiveness for the female condom
  • 92 - 96% effectiveness for the male condom
However, this initiative has found that there is a lack of awareness and understanding of the female condom and its benefits, and about female anatomy. This negatively impacts acceptance and usage of the female condom. Unlike a male condom which can be distributed in any accessible public location, female condoms require a different approach. This initiative has found that consumers need to be repeatedly exposed to female condoms before they are willing to use them. In addition, the focus should not be just on women but also men. Our community partners have found that men quickly accepted the female condom because it feels like they are having sex without protection. This was a surprising “lesson learned” that broadened the focus of this intiative to not just women but also their partners.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a cost-utility analysis of the first year of the Female Condom initiative. They found that enough HIV infections were prevented to save over $8 million in future medical care costs (over and above the cost of the program). The results of this study were recently published in the Journal of AIDS and Behavior.

Agencies who would like to incorporate female condoms into HIV prevention interventions need to:

  • Have staff who are well versed in the female anatomy, know how to correctly use a female condom, and understand the benefits of the female condom
  • Educate both men and women about the female condom
  • Incorporate role playing and negotiation skills into trainings so that participants can practice dispelling incorrect assumptions about the female condom
  • Incorporate basic female anatomy information into all female condom trainings
  • Normalize female condoms by having them readily available