Availability of contraceptive methods

In 1981 the Mexican "Rural Family Planning Survey" included some questions dealing with contraceptive knowledge and the accessibility of health care and family planning promotion facilities. The survey was performed on towns of population <2500. Despite the fact that contraceptive knowledge had reached high levels (79.3% of the rural women surveyed knew about oral contraceptives; 26.4% had heard about condoms) womens knowledge of sources of contraceptives was low (only 29.8% of the women possessing this knowledge knew of where to obtain the pill while 41.2% of women familiar with the condom as a contraceptive were aware of where to obtain it). Primary and 2ndary education were determinants of contraceptive knowledge. Only 9% of women with a primary education were ignorant of contraception while the figure for uneducated women was 42%. Generally midwives were considered to be the best source of knowledge followed by public health oriented centers and in the case of the condom pharmacies. A large and distrubing number of women living in the smaller villages (<500 population) did not benefit from the availability of any health or family planning services. Generally contraceptive practice was correlated with the number of contraceptive methods known but by far the greatest increase in practice occurred between 1 and 2 methods known. In general the greater the number of contraceptive services provided to populations the greater was the usage. The order of contraceptive perference was orals followed by injectables surgical sterilization the IUD and the condom.