Table of Contents
Chapters
- Fertility Continues to Decline
- Contraceptive Use
- Contraceptive Method Mix
- Awareness and Availability of Contraception
- Awareness and Approval
- The Mass Media
- Availability of Family Planning
- Other Direct Influences on Fertility
- Fertility Preferences
- Young Women
- Child Survival and Health
- Maternal Health
Highlights
- Is fertility decline slowing?
- The impact of contraception
- Intentions to use family planning
- Injectables becoming popular
- Desired family size falling
- Premarital sex: New findings
- How AIDS affects child survival
- Maternal care falls short
Published by the INFO Project, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA
Volume XXXI, Number 2,
Spring 2003
Series M, Number 17
Special Topics
The Mass Media
Family planning programs often rely on mass media campaigns to inform people about contraception and influence social norms concerning family planning. Television, radio, and other mass media have a powerful influence on people’s attitudes and behavior concerning family planning and fertility (13, 83).
 Population Services International (PSI) |
In Zambia two young men read for a peer education radio show. Radio, television, and other mass media have a powerful influence on people’s attitudes and behavior and on social norms concerning family planning. |
In every surveyed sub-Saharan African country, radio reaches far more women with family planning messages than television (see Table 5). Elsewhere, however, in 20 of 32 countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, more women get family planning information from television. The reach of family planning messages broadcast through the mass media including both radio and tele-vision has grown since 1990 (see Table 5).
Approval of family planning messages. Throughout the developing world most women find family planning messages in the mass media acceptable, and levels of approval are rising. In all surveyed countries except Chad and Pakistan, more than half of women say that mass media family planning messages are acceptable—from an average of 74% in sub-Saharan Africa to 91% in Latin America and the Caribbean (see Table 5). The level of acceptability increased in 8 of 10 countries with at least two surveys since 1990 (see Table 5).
Availability of Family Planning
Recently, the DHS has begun the Service Provision Assessment (SPA) surveys. These collect information on the availability and quality of care for family planning, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, child health, and maternal health. The SPA surveys differ from their predecessors, the Service Availability surveys, in that they collect data from a nationally representative sample of all types of facilities—from dispensaries to hospitals—in the public and private sectors rather than from health officials and community leaders.
The first two of these new assessments, in Kenya in 1999 and in Bangladesh in 1999–2000, found that 88% and 85%, respectively, of all health facilities in the two countries provided family planning services. In both countries 89% of health facilities provided injectables. In Kenya 88% provided condoms, and in Bangladesh, 96%. In Kenya 51% provided the IUD, and in Bangladesh, 87%. In Kenya only 11% of health facilities offered female sterilization compared with 37% in Bangladesh (74, 99). Service provision reports are near completion in Egypt, Ghana, Mexico, and Rwanda and are planned elsewhere.
Knowledge of sources. The DHS household surveys measure individual perceptions of family planning availability. In countries with such information, most women say they know where to obtain a contraceptive method (36). For example, in 9 of 11 developing countries outside sub-Saharan Africa with applicable survey data, 90% or more of married women know where to obtain at least one modern method. The exceptions are Pakistan and Yemen, where the figures are 45% and 27%, respectively (36).
In sub-Saharan Africa knowledge of sources varies widely among surveyed countries. In four countries over 80% of married women know a source of modern contraception. In six other countries, however, fewer than half know a source.
While most women who know about contraception also know where to obtain it, in some countries there is a large gap between awareness of a method and knowledge of its source. In Burkina Faso, for example, 63% of married women know of a modern contraceptive method, but only 28% know a source for it. Substantial gaps also exist in Niger, Pakistan, Senegal, and Yemen (36).
Public, private, and other sources. The public sector is the main supplier of contraception in developing countries as a whole (36). Nevertheless, in the Near East and North Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean, private providers supply more than half of OCs and injections. In sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia, private sources supply more than half of condoms.
Sources vary by type of contraceptive. In many countries more than half of users of clinical methods, such as IUDs and injectables, obtain them at a stationary government facility. In contrast, outside sub-Saharan Africa private pharmacies are a major source of methods such as condoms and OCs (36).
