FRONTIERS Projects | Extending OR to the Problems of Scale-up in Bolivia, India and Senegal

FRONTIERS PROJECT
Extending Operations Research to the Problems of Scale Up: Costs, Compliance, and Effectiveness of Systematic Screening

Systematic screening is a proactive approach in which providers use a checklist to identify a client's needs and desires for reproductive health services, and address these needs at the same visit or through a further appointment or referral. Research in Bolivia, India, and Senegal has shown that systematic screening can increase the number of health care needs addressed during a single client visit by 9–25 percent, and the governments of these countries wish to scale up the use of the technique.

This project combines support for scale up with research on specific aspects of the scaling-up process. FRONTIERS will furnish technical assistance in the scale-up of systematic screening in Bolivia, India, and Senegal. To increase understanding of the scaling-up process, FRONTIERS researchers also will conduct operations research (OR) to (1) project the costs of larger-scale implementation; (2) monitor the effectiveness of the approach in a broader program setting; and (3) improve providers' compliance with service-delivery innovations.

An additional OR study in Mali, a country with very low contraceptive prevalence, will test whether systematic screening can be modified to better target family planning in this setting.

Location

Bolivia, India, Mali, and Senegal

Duration

September 2005–December 2007

Population Council researchers

James R. Foreit, Nafissatou Diop

Non-Council collaborators

Bolivia: Comprehensive Health Project (Proyecto de Salud Integral or PROSIN) and the Bolivian Ministry of Health

India: Gujarat Family Welfare Program and Vadodara Municipal Corporation

Mali: Ministry of Health

Senegal: Ministry of Health and Prevention

Donor

US Agency for International Development

Related Projects

Scaling Up the Systematic Screening Instrument (SSI) Project in India