Population Council Research that makes a difference

The past ten years have seen an increasing trend toward the integration of services previously offered independently, such as integrating family planning with HIV services, the service package offered through focused antenatal care, and the link between postabortion care and family planning. Integration can increase service effectiveness and efficiency, but it can also pose challenges in that integration often requires training for providers, service reorganization, budgetary changes, and other adjustments.

This project brought together the innovative measurement instruments that have been developed, tested, and validated during FRONTIERS research on integration in many countries and made them available through a handbook on assessing integrated family planning services, a document on tools for introducing integrated pregnancy services in sub-Saharan Africa, and a program brief describing the adaptation of health facility assessments for evaluation of integrated services.