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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Monique M Hennink, BA (Hons), PhD, Department of Social Statistics, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom, 44-02380-597989, mon@socsci.soton.ac.uk and Rob Stephenson, BSc, MSc, PhD, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, University Square, CB#8120, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
Pakistan has one of the highest levels of unmet need for family planning services in the world coupled with continuing high fertility. This study examines some of the barriers to family planning service utilization among urban slum populations in two provinces of Pakistan, Punjab and Sindh. The paper considers service related barriers in addition to cognitive and social barriers. The data used are from a household population survey conducted amongst 5338 ever-married women in six urban study sites in Punjab and Sindh. Additional data is taken from 40 focus group discussions conducted with men and women across the six study sites. The results demonstrate that although women report a high approval of contraceptive use, there exists a low uptake of modern methods of family planning. Only 25% of women report ever using a family planning service. The low levels of contraceptive use and use of family planning services firstly reflects the lack of family planning services in urban slum areas, which leads to a reliance on pharmacies in local markets. There is also a lack of knowledge about the presence of family planning services, and evidence of poor provider attitudes towards clients at Government hospitals that discourage their utilization. The lack of female service providers inhibits women from using many family planning services. In addition, prevailing pronatalist attitudes and husband’s opposition to family planning are significant barriers to method and service use, particularly amongst women with no formal education.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Family Planning, Service Delivery
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.