Stat-Shot: Focused Family Planning Data at Your Fingertips

The RESPOND Project at EngenderHealth developed this tool on family planning (FP) statics from a secondary analysis of data from 40 demographic and health surveys (DHS) to explore the characteristics of users and nonusers of different FP methods. Indicators explored include parity, ideal number of children, wealth quintile, urban vs. rural location, and source of method, with methods categorised as traditional, short-acting, or long-acting and permanent.  The tool lists countries, indicators, display by table or "all data", and a help section with definitions, explanations, and variables.

The tool can be used for advocacy by highlighting disparities in method use and is designed to enable evidence-based decision making and priority setting among programme managers by identifying existing gaps in knowledge or underserved segments of the population to answer these questions, among others:

• "What methods women use for spacing versus for limiting? Whether these method choices match their stated fertility intentions?
• How the method mix differs between the wealthiest and the poorest women? Between urban and rural women?
• Whether parity and ideal number of children differ among users of different types of methods?
• If family planning users met or exceeded their desired parity? Whether this differs by type of method used?"

Funding is provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).