Exploratory research on Malawi’s National Emergency Contraception Strategy (R4S Study 1.14)

This mixed methods study was conducted from November 2022–March 2023 in 2 rural districts (Mchinji and Phalombe) implementing the strategy. We conducted qualitative interviews with 10 national stakeholders, 46 providers, and 24 clients aged 15–24 years about ECP service delivery. Additionally, 25 providers collected quantitative tally data about clients seeking ECPs and about how ECP was used in the selected service delivery channels. Channels included general population outreach, youth-specific outreach, Community health worker cadres (health surveillance assistants and volunteer community-based distribution agents), and youth clubs. We analyzed qualitative data using grounded theory and quantitative data descriptively. The quantitative data is publicly available on Harvard Dataverse, although the qualitative data is not publicly available since it could not be completely de-identified. This work is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), provided to FHI 360 through Cooperative Agreement 7200AA19CA00041. Partners on this work include Population Services International and Family Health Services Malawi.