The International Planned Parenthood Federation has redeveloped and relaunched its Medical Abortion Commodities Database. The updated site was designed to be more user-friendly with improved accessibility on both desktop and mobile devices.

MedAb.org is the only public source of information on country-level availability of quality medical abortion commodities. Launched in September 2018, MedAb.org has filled a knowledge gap and has been a reliable source of information on availability of quality medical abortion products at country level for four years. The site currently contains product information for 102 countries, including 22 brands of misoprostol, 44 brands of mifepristone and 15 brands of combipacks.

In 2021, site use grew significantly, with more than 30,000 active users, so IPPF undertook multiple analyses to understand more about these users. We redesigned the site to improve user experience for a broader range of user types, including researchers and academics. With more than half of site users identifying as individuals seeking abortion care, we improved signposting to trusted partners so they can access reliable and timely information.

Catherine Kilfedder, IPPF’s Senior Programme Adviser, Abortion, said:

“We needed to rebuild our site to improve technical functionality, but we saw an opportunity to simultaneously improve user experience. We embarked on a human-centred design project to understand our users and design a site to better meet their needs.” 

Site use continues to grow, with more than 50,000 active users in the first eight months of 2022, and IPPF is thrilled to respond to this growing user base with a new and improved MedAb.org.