PIP:
Results are presented of research undertaken in the Republic of Korea and Malaysia to determine how far integration affects the performance of family planning and allied programs and to identify organizational determinants of clinic level interactive linkages. The report discusses the background of the research, provides overviews of the country programs, outlines research methodologies and procedures, and presents findings. 41 clinics with high, medium, and low performance ratings in Korea and 17 main health centers, 31 sub-health centers, and 49 midwife stations in Malaysia, (some of them intensive input demonstration areas) were assessed on performance, interaction measures, and organizational determinants. The overall finding was that integration affects program performance, but the direction of the impact depends on how the integrated programs are organized. In Malaysia, where the program is specifically organized to integrate family planning with maternal and child health, the integration appears to have increased service delivery and resulted in larger numbers of family planning acceptors. No spill-over was found from the inputs of the 2 components to each other. The overall positive impact and lack of service reduction due to integration appears to result from specific planning for a limited degree of integration. In Korea, a mild negative relationship was found between clinic level performance in the family planning and community development, or Saemaul Undong (SU) components. In the field SU was observed to be more favored and powerful, and was not fully integrated with family planning. The major conclusion of the study was that integration works best when family planning is linked to similar services, and does not work as well with services that are different in character or in degree of government support.
* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.