There are a number of reasons for anticipating that contact by women in developing country settings with modern maternal-child health (MCH) services will lead to increased use of family planning services. Indeed, the expectation of such a relationship underlies the integrated service delivery strategy that has been adopted on a more or less global basis. However, the available empirical evidence in support of this proposition is inconclusive. This study re-examines this issue in Uganda with data from the 1995 Demographic and Health Survey. The analysis is based on a data set that links information from women of reproductive age with information on the supply environment for health and family planning services. An important statistical issue that is addressed in the study concerns the endogeneity of health care and contraceptive behaviors. Because MCH service and contraceptive use have some and perhaps many common determinants, many of which are unobserved to the researcher, treating MCH service use as an exogenous predictor of contraceptive use in multivariate statistical models would result in biased parameter estimates. The study controls for this endogeneity by estimating a full-information maximum likelihood estimator to assess the effect of intensity of MCH service utilization on subsequent contraceptive use. The coefficient estimates of the two-equation model will be used to carry out a number of policy simulations of the impact of increasing the coverage and intensity of use of MCH services on the utilization of family planning services.
Learning Objectives: Assess the potential mechanisms in which contact with MCH services will influence contraceptive behavior; Evaluate the empirical evidence on this issue in Uganda using a two-stage multivariate model
Keywords: Service Integration, Reproductive Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: The Commercial Market Strategies Project, Tulane University, University of North Texas
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.