Family Health = Family Wealth (R01HD113806)

WHY?

In 2022, 29.7% of married women of reproductive age had an unmet need for family planning in Uganda, meaning they wanted to avoid pregnancy but were not using an effective contraceptive method. Filling the unmet need for family planning has important public health implications, including reductions in pregnancy-related health risks and deaths, and infant mortality. On the supply side, community platforms to deliver family planning, as well as provider capacity to provide effective methods, need to be strengthened, but such efforts will not be optimized without addressing multilevel demand-side barriers to contraceptive use. Misinformation and fear of contraceptive side-effects, relationship dynamics, peer and family influence, and broader community norms promoting large family size and traditional gender roles influence family planning. This study seeks to evaluate an innovative multilevel intervention to increase contraceptive use in rural Uganda, which has among the highest unmet needs for family planning and fertility rates in the world. By addressing multilevel barriers to family planning, this intervention can help couples to better space and time their pregnancies, reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy, and ultimately reduce rates of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality.