Developing and testing strategies for increasing awareness of the IUD as a contraceptive option.

A workshop was held in Southampton England on 18th – 20th February 2004 to identify the most promising interventions for increasing access to the IUD and to generate protocols for small-scale operations research projects to be undertaken in selected countries. Participants were academics policy makers program staff and service providers from Bangladesh Ghana Guatemala Honduras India Kenya and Nepal. Staff members from several international organizations participated including the Opportunities and Choices Programme University of Southampton Population Council FHI EngenderHealth and Marie Stopes International. The workshop objectives were to: review international experiences with approaches to increase access to and use of the IUD; identify factors explaining the decline in IUD use in many countries; identify factors favoring client demand for IUD; review barriers to effective IUD service delivery; identify issues of access and equity in provision for poor and under-served groups; and prepare the basic elements for operations research protocols for operations research studies to address the factors identified. Participants were divided in three teams each of which developed at least one outline for an OR project proposal that could later be finalized and submitted for funding. Although initially the intention was to have a common intervention and research design the teams worked independently and the resulting outlines were substantially different. The draft outlines were presented to the group as a whole for review and discussion. All teams agreed to finish and finalize their proposals after the workshop and submit them for funding. Outlines of OR project proposals were developed for Bangladesh Ghana Guatemala Honduras and Kenya.