Narrative Description of Project: The A2H project aims to improve adolescents’ health and well-being among the project population, achieving three intermediate results, namely, 1) delaying age of marriage; 2) delaying first birth and improving birth spacing; and 3) improving healthy adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) behavior among adolescents. The project plans to achieve the results through strengthening adolescent friendly health services (AFHS) at health service sites, such as delivery of health information and life skills to married and unmarried adolescents, counseling on family planning to married adolescents, and engagement with key gatekeeper in the family and community to create social environment for delaying marriage and early pregnancy.
The project began in January, 2016, and would continue through December 2018. It is implemented in the district of Rangpur in Rangpur Division, and is led by Plan Bangladesh with implementation support from its’ two local partners, Lutheran Aid Mission to Bangladesh (LAMB) and the Eco-Social Development Organization (EDSO).
The survey was conducting in three sites consisting of two program upazilas and one comparison upazila (non-program area). The two program areas were comprised of Rangpur Sadar and Mitapukur upazilas in Rangpur district, while the comparison area was Nawabganj upazila in Dinajpur district.
The survey was conducted the interviewing a representative sample of adolescent girls age 15-19 years living in the three survey upazilas. The sample was drawn in two stages. At the first stage, 320 clusters were randomly selected, including 120 clusters from Rangpur Sadar upoazila, 120 from Mitapukur upazila and 80 from Nawabganj upazila.
A total of 320 clusters were completed in the survey. Among these clusters, a total of 13273 households were selected (about 44 households per cluster including 24 households with currently married adolescent girls and 20 households with never married adolescent girls). Among these households, 12256 were identified as eligible for the individual interview including 6401 households with currently married adolescent girls and 5855 households with never married adolescent girls. The response rate was 91.0 percent for currently married girls and 97.0 percent for never married girls. The principal reason for non-response among eligible adolescent girls was the failure to find them at home at the time of interview. The non-response rate was higher for currently married adolescent girls in both program upazilas and comparison upazila. Among the currently married girls, the pregnant adolescent girls usually visit their parental house to deliver their baby.
