Recorded presentation

Catharine McKaig, DrPH, International Program, World Neighbors, 4127 NW 122nd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73120, (405) 752-9700, cmckaig@wn.org

Globally over one billion people live in absolute poverty. The majority live in ecologically fragile areas and depend primarily on their natural resource base for survival. These resources are being rapidly depleted in an effort to cope with daily economic challenges.

Over the past three years, in the Philippines and Bolivia, two operations research studies were implemented. The design of both studies included reproductive health only, integrated (reproductive health and natural resource management) and natural resource management treatments. The comparison of different treatment sites was considered essential to learning more about the possible linkages between activities. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to examine outcomes and linkages.

Outcomes examined included use of reproductive health services, environmental practices, and a variety of indicators intended to examine linkages. These indicators included those aimed at assessing couple communication, local organizational leadership, and well-being status.

In both sites, initial findings indicate significant differences in reproductive health service use for integrated sites compared to reproductive health only treatments. However, no differences between integrated and natural resource only treatments were noted.

This was an initial attempt to systematically evaluate a variety of programmatic outcomes linked to population and environment. Key lessons learned include:

1) Difficulty of conducting operational research in community driven programming.

2) Promise of a social change approach due to programmatic depth of an integrated approach.

3) Measures of women's autonomy and local organization appear to be related to positive outcomes.

Learning Objectives: