Research Briefs on Community-Based Services

Community-based health services offer efficient and safe care options, and they are especially useful in underserved areas, where access to quality care is either limited or absent. Because community-based health workers live in the communities they serve, they often share a valuable cultural affinity with their clients.
 
FHI's research shows that community-based distribution of contraceptives can serve unmet family planning needs of women in rural communities and isolated city neighborhoods, thereby increasing contraceptive use and expanding access to family planning. This is just one example of how community-based services are making a difference in the provision of quality care.
 
The briefs below discuss the positive effects of community-based care, especially regarding provision of specific contraceptive methods, including condoms and oral and injectable contraceptives.

Community-Based Workers Can Deliver Safe, High-Quality Contraceptive Injections (2007)

Community-based reproductive health workers in a rural African setting can provide contraceptive injections as safely and effectively as local clinic-based workers, according to results of a USAID-supported study in Uganda.

Improving Access to Family Planning: Community-Based Distribution of DMPA (2007)

This kit provides information and tools with which decision-makers can advocate for and initiate community-based distribution (CBD) of the injectable contraceptive depot-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA or Depo-Provera).