FRONTIERS PROJECT
Scaling Up the Systematic Screening Instrument Project in India

FRONTIERS is providing technical assistance to the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat, to scale up the systematic screening instrument (SSI) project in selected rural and urban clinics in Gujarat.

Results of the initial project ("Systematic Screening for Integrating Reproductive Health Services in India") showed that the SSI was highly effective in identifying women's unmet reproductive health needs. On average, women received one additional service when visiting experimental clinics; the number of services per visit increased by 22 percent in the experimental urban clinics while decreasing slightly in the control clinics.

The intervention is being scaled up from the initial eight Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) clinics to an additional 10 VMC clinics, as well as to all 28 Surat Municipal Corporation clinics and 12 primary health clinics each in Gujarat's Dahod and Vadodara districts. A total of 387 providers have been trained. In rural areas, the services have increased by 50 percent, while in urban areas the provision of services during the same visit of the client has doubled.

Considering the simplicity of the intervention (using a checklist to screen for clients) and its usefulness in identifying clients' unmet reproductive health needs, the local USAID mission is funding the scale-up of SSI in the entire state of Uttaranchal, covering about 2,000 clinics in rural areas.

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Location

India

Population Council researcher

Anurag Mishra

Non-Council collaborator

UNFPA

Donor

US Agency for International Development

Publications/Resources
Council researchers' names appear in boldface type. 

2006
Foreit, James R. “Systematic screening: A strategy for determining and meeting clients’ reproductive health needs,” FRONTIERS Program Brief no. 6. Washington, DC: Population Council. (PDF, 348 KB)

Vernon, Ricardo, James R. Foreit, and Emma Ottolenghi. Introducing Systematic Screening to Reduce Unmet Health Needs: A Manager’s Manual, FRONTIERS manual. Washington, DC: Population Council. (PDF)

2005
Das, N.P., Urvi Shah, Varsha Chitania, Pratibha Patel, M.E. Khan, Anurag Mishra, and James R. Foreit. "Systematic screening to integrate reproductive health services in India,” FRONTIERS Final Report. Washington, DC: Population Council. (PDF, 135 KB)

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Related Projects

• India: Systematic Screening for Integrating Reproductive Health Services in India
• Bolivia: Use of Systematic Screening to Provide Reproductive Health Services in Bolivia
• Honduras: Systematic Screening as a Strategy to Increase Services Integration and Revenue in Honduras
• Senegal: Using Systematic Screening to Enhance Integration of Reproductive Health Service Delivery in Senegal

See Also

• India
• Quality of Care
• General Quality of Care
• FRONTIERS Publications/Resources on Systematic Screening
• FRONTIERS Quality of Care Improvement
• FRONTIERS Scaling Up

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