Measuring the effort levels of family planning programmes (profile of 30 programme effort scores, 1982 and 1989)

The chief results to emerge in this preliminary analysis are as follows: Stronger programmes are stronger on every score. Their overall superiority in the total score is not due to exceptional stress on any one feature, but rather to a substantial advantage score by score, across all 4 dimensions of effort. A further difference is that stronger programmes have more consistent values across the various scores, quite apart from their levels, whereas weaker programmes are erratic, displaying much greater variability around their own mean score than do the stronger programmes. The profiles themselves (apart from levels) have not changed from 1982 to 1989. Stronger programmes in 1989 show the same score patterns as did the smaller number of stronger programmes in 1982. This also holds true for weaker programmes: the profile of the weaker programmes in 1982 was duplicated in 1989, even though countries left that category and moved into the stronger group. The 19 countries that shifted to the higher category conformed to the profile of weaker countries in 1982 (though at a slightly higher level); but conformed to the profile of stronger countries in 1989 (though at a slightly lower level). Thus it is likely that maturing programmes tend to follow a special pattern of improvement: They improve differentially across the 30 scores. The prevalence of contraceptive use is closely associated with programme effort, but some programme features count more than others. The availability scores for contraceptive methods count most, and service and service-related efforts come next.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)