Giving Voice to Post-Partum Women: Using Qualitative Methods and User-Centered Design to Generate Women-Centered Interventions to Increase Birth Spacing and Boost Family Planning Uptake in Ghana

Our pilot project in Ghana aims to address persistent low family planning uptake among postpartum women by applying in-depth qualitative inquiry and user-centered design principles. Previous interventions based on quantitative surveys have failed to significantly improve family planning rates, signaling the need for a more nuanced understanding of women's lived experiences. This pilot is an essential first step towards designing interventions that genuinely reflect what women want. The project will explore the "know-do" gap, analyzing why high awareness of family planning in Ghana does not translate into its use. Incorporating Prochaska and DiClemente’s Stages of Change theory, we aim to understand the decision-making processes of postpartum women concerning family planning. Additionally, we will focus on contextual factors such as cultural conceptions of fertility, misinformation about contraceptives, and fear of side effects. Partnering with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the project also leverages long-standing collaborations to investigate women's empowerment and its relation to contraceptive use. The study's objectives are to conduct qualitative research with postpartum women and use human-centered design workshops to develop culturally appropriate interventions. This initiative aims to create sustainable, impactful strategies to increase family planning use among postpartum women, ultimately improving health outcomes for mothers and their children.