Evaluating Household Visits and Small Groups to Increase Contraception Use Among Married Adolescent Girls in Rural Niger

This study entails a quasi-experimental, mixed-methods (i.e., complementary quantitative and qualitative) outcome evaluation to assess the efficacy of the Reaching Married Adolescents (RMA) Interventions developed and implemented by Pathfinder International to increase contraception use and contraception use intentions among married adolescent girls ages 13-19 in three rural districts of the Dosso region of Niger. Intervention models (gender-synchronized household visits and small groups) will be tested using a randomized 4-arm outcome evaluation design; Arm 1 will receive household visits, Arm 2 will receive small groups; Arm 3 will receive household visits plus small groups, and Arm 4 will serve as the control group and will not receive any intervention. The quantitative component will consist of collecting quantitative baseline, 16-months follow-up, and 27-months survey data from randomly selected married adolescent girls (n=1200) and their husbands (n=1200) who are participating in each Arm of the study. Qualitative elements will include ethnography at two time points and semi-structured in-depth interviews half way through intervention implementation. A costing and cost effectiveness analysis will also be conducted to evaluate which intervention provides the largest gain in the primary outcomes for each dollar spent.