Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #103835

Farnaz Vahidnia, MD, MPH, Bixby Program in Family Planning, Maternal Health, and Reproductive Health, University of California at Berkeley, 1213 Tolamn Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1690, 510-643-4284, fvahid@uclink.berkelely.edu, Malcolm Potts, MB, BChir, PhD, Bixby Professor of Population and Family Planning, University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, Earl Warren Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, Ndola Prata, MD, MSc, Bixby Population Program, University of California, Berkeley, 1213 Tolman Hall, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, and Sousan Parsay, PhD, Department of Social Medicine and Public Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, Evin, Tehran, Iran.

This study will focus at Iranians unique experience with implementation of a national family planning program and huge decline in total fertility rate between 1986 and 2000. The study is aiming to understand socio-demographic factors as well as policy changes that lead to a successful family planning program in a Moslem country. In the first part of the study, a secondary analysis of the Iranian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS 2000) database will investigate the knowledge, attitude, and behavior of Iranian women of reproductive age in the city of Tehran, and four provinces of Sistan & Balouchestan, Yazd, W. Azerbaijan, and Guilan. The second part of the project will consist of semi-structured interviews with policy makers, researchers, and providers at different levels of the community in the above city and provinces. The results of the study will enable policy makers and researchers to evaluate existing family planning program and develop new strategies. In addition, study will inform Western audience of an important development relating to the status of women in Iran.

Learning Objectives:

1.To understand socio-demographic factors that affect fertility and contraceptive use from Iranian women’s perspective.
• To assess family planning policies, and fertility issues in Iran from policy makers, researchers, and providers’ perspective.
• To enable policy makers, program managers, and researchers in developing countries with fast-growing population to evaluate existing family planning program and develop new strategies.
• To inform Western audiences of an important development relating to the status of women in Iran.

Keywords: Developing Countries, Family Planning

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.