Better Together: Linking Family Planning and Community Health for Health Equity and Impact

This paper provides compelling evidence that integration of family planning into HIV, nutrition, agriculture, and food security programs is a value-added strategy, saving lives, and spurring progress to prevent diseases, protect the environment, and improve the health of young people. Despite these benefits, more than 200 million women worldwide, especially poor women and those in rural and remote areas, still lack access to modern contraception. “Smart” integration of family planning, through social behavior change, is an important strategy to help address that shortfall—as it simultaneously supports other development goals, as described in this report.

Integrating family planning with existing health interventions at the community level not only broadens access and equity, but also improves substantive understanding of the importance of family planning to the health of women, children and the family, and to reducing unintended pregnancies and abortions.