Effects of a Social Network Diffusion Intervention on Key Family Planning Indicators – Impacts d’une Intervention de Diffusion via les Réseaux Sociaux sur les Indicateurs Clés de la Planification Familiale

The Tékponon Jikuagou social network intervention used social mapping to identify and engage influential community actors – groups and individuals, or influentials – in examining such barriers. Serving as entrees into social networks, these network actors, in turn, encouraged community dialogue about unmet need and family planning and catalyze the spread of new ideas and attitudes.

This is a report of the pilot intervention carried out in 2013-14. It showed that overall exposure to the Tékponon Jikuagou intervention package in the study area was low, with about 15% of women and 12% of men having listened to Tékponon Jikuagou radio broadcasts in the 3 months prior to the survey. Those women and men who were exposed to intervention activities (reflective dialogues) during a group meeting, however, were 2.8 times more likely to ask a health worker about family planning information than those who had not been exposed to this component.

The social network intervention also had a significant positive effect on couple communication, with men exposed to Tékponon Jikuagou radio content 2.5 times as likely as unexposed men to report discussing fertility and family planning methods with their spouses. Men and women who were exposed to at least one component of the Tékponon Jikuagou package were more than 3 times as likely to perceive that at least one person in their social network approved of family planning use. Study participants who perceived that family planning was approved of within their community were up to 4.5 times more likely to take steps toward obtaining family planning information or services or talk with their spouse about family planning, and between 2 and 3 times more likely to use a modern family planning method and report met need for family planning.

Source: Institute for Reproductive Health / Georgetown

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019