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Impact of Self-Care Family Planning Services on Health and Development in South Sudan (Family Planning Impact Lab)
Sponsor: Guttmacher Institute
Summary
Since 2019, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has led family planning programming under the Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) program, funded by the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. This study will assess contraceptive-related outcomes in communities in South Sudan where the IRC is implementing a standard set of family planning services. Approximately one year into their standard implementation, the IRC will develop additional interventions to augment the standard, which this study will evaluate over the subsequent three years. This additive intervention will aim to optimize last-mile service delivery by increasing access to self-managed family planning methods, such as oral contraceptive pills, emergency contraception, and self-injectable contraception. This study is independent of the IRC and is one of four studies in the Guttmacher Institute's Family Planning Impact Lab (FPIL). FPIL intends to produce experimental research, estimating the causal impact of various family planning interventions on women's broader health, wellbeing, and development outcomes in South Sudan, Somalia, Chad, and Sierra Leone.
Official title: Estimating the Impact of Comprehensive SRHR Services on Health and Development in South Sudan: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of a Contraceptive Self-Care Intervention for the Family Planning Impact Lab
Key Details
Gender
FEMALE
Age Range
15 Years - 49 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
2736
Start Date
2026-09-11
Completion Date
2029-05
Last Updated
2026-10-27
Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Interventions
Self-Managed Contraceptive Care
This intervention is designed to expand access to self-managed family planning methods among women and girls in settings with weak last-mile service delivery. Contraceptive self-care - encompassing self-administered injectable contraception, oral contraceptive pills, emergency contraception, and other user-controlled methods - offers a complementary model of service delivery that can bypass structural barriers by placing tools and decision-making directly in the hands of users. Self-care approaches are particularly important for women experiencing intimate partner violence or reproductive coercion, for whom discreet and self-managed contraception may be the only accessible option. Intervention mechanisms will include a network of trained self-care promoters; targeted information, education, and communication (IEC) materials, direct commodity provision; facility provider training on self-care counseling; and client decision-support tools.
Standard Family Planning Services (WISH-2)
The IRC's standard WISH-2 family planning service delivery package, implemented by the IRC independently of the study team in all study bomas. The package strengthens facility-based family planning services through provider training, commodity availability, service integration, and community mobilization, with services delivered through static, outreach, and community-based channels.
Locations (1)
Multi-site (household surveys) throughout Aweil East
Malualkon, South Sudan