Honduras: Marketing new reproductive health services is cost-effective

In 1999, the Honduran Ministry of Health (MOH) revised national guidelines on women’s health services delivery to allow nurse auxiliaries to insert IUDs, give DMPA injections, and take Pap smears. This policy change addresses low contraceptive use among rural women and reflects findings from a 1998 Population Council study that showed that nurse auxiliaries can safely and successfully provide these services. Under the previous guidelines, rural women had limited access to long-term family planning methods. In 2000, the Population Council and the MOH assessed the effectiveness and cost of using a simple leaflet, distributed by nurse auxiliaries, to market the new services. Nurse auxiliaries at the experimental centers received 500 leaflets to distribute. They gave daily ten-minute talks about the services and asked each woman at the clinic to distribute five leaflets to friends and neighbors. This brief notes that the use of ten-minute talks and leaflets to advertise availability of IUD insertions, DMPA injections, and Pap smears increased use of the services at an affordable cost. The marketing efforts will be expanded to clinics where nurse auxiliaries have been trained to provide these services.