Measurement of self-care interventions is important for monitoring progress and for strengthening the evidence base for effective programming. While self-care is not a new phenomenon, codified consolidated national and global SRH self-care guidelines are still nascent. Moreover, the very feature that defines self-care makes it hard to track and measure many aspects of the journeys self-carers and self-caregivers undertake: by design, much if not all of a user’s self-care experiences take place outside of the formal health system, and are therefore not usually included in routine data collection on health service and outcome indicators.

Established in 2018 with support from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and the William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Self-Care Trailblazer Group (SCTG) was formed as a global coalition with
the aim of advancing global and regional advocacy for evidence-based self-care; supporting national governments in institutionalizing self-care in sexual and reproductive health policy and practice; and building
a global technical community of practice to advance evidence-based self-care practice and evidence. To help address the need for pragmatic and standardized SRH self-care measures, the SCTG’s Evidence and Learning Working Group set forth to develop a measurement tool for SRH self-care.