# Efficacy Testing of a Multi-Level Family Planning Intervention to Increase Contraceptive Use and Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Low Resource Settings

> **NIH NIH R01** · BOSTON COLLEGE · 2024 · $627,712

## Abstract

Modified Project Summary/Abstract Section

In 2022, 29.7% of married women of reproductive age had an unmet need for family planning in Uganda, meaning they wanted to avoid pregnancy but were not using a modern contraceptive method. Filling the unmet need for family planning has important public health implications, including reductions in pregnancy-related health risks and deaths, and infant mortality. On the supply-side, community platforms to deliver family planning, as well as provider capacity to provide effective methods, need to be strengthened, but such efforts will not be optimized without addressing multilevel demand-side barriers to contraceptive use. Fear of side-effects, relationship dynamics, peer and family influence, and broader community norms promoting large family size and traditional societal roles influence family planning. We propose to test the Family Health=Family Wealth (FH=FW) multi-level, community-based intervention, which employs health system strengthening efforts alongside community dialogues to alter individual knowledge and the perception of community norms that discourage family planning. Community dialogues are delivered to groups of couples over 5-sessions enhanced to simultaneously address individual and interpersonal-level determinants of family planning and serve as a platform for community-based family planning and linkage to facility-based family planning services. The study aims are to: (1) In a cluster randomized trial, compare the efficacy of the FH=FW intervention vs. a time/attention matched comparator intervention at increasing modern contraceptive use and reducing unintended pregnancy among couples with an unmet need for family planning through 24-months, and identify potential mediators of the intervention effect. (2) Determine the intervention’s effect on, and determinants of, contraceptive continuation. (3) Through a mixed-methods process evaluation, explore factors affecting the implementation of the intervention in order to improve feasibility, acceptability, and the likelihood of future adoption and sustainment.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10781569
- **Project number:** 1R01HD113806-01
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON COLLEGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Susan Maria Kiene
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $627,712
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-20 → 2029-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10781569

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10781569, Efficacy Testing of a Multi-Level Family Planning Intervention to Increase Contraceptive Use and Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Low Resource Settings (1R01HD113806-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10781569. Licensed CC0.

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