Skip to Main Content

RTI uses cookies to offer you the best experience online. By and clicking “accept” on this website, you opt in and you agree to the use of cookies. If you would like to know more about how RTI uses cookies and how to manage them please view our Privacy Policy here. You can “opt out” or change your mind by visiting: http://optout.aboutads.info/. Click “accept” to agree.

Accept
RTI International
  • About
    • Office Locations
    • Executive Leadership
    • Corporate Governance
    • Partner with Us
      • U.S. Government
      • Clients and Funding Agencies
      • Industry and Commercial Clients
      • Foundations and Associations
      • Bilateral Agencies and Multilateral Banks
      • Universities and Academic Research Institutions
      • Suppliers and Small Businesses
    • Commitment to Quality
      • RTI's Client Listening Program
    • Ethics and Human Research Protection
    • Living Our Mission
    • Veteran Opportunities at RTI

    About

  • Practice Areas
    • Health
      • Public Health and Well-Being
      • Health Care Transformation
      • Behavioral Health
      • Health Behavior Change
      • Precision Medicine
      • RTI Health Solutions (RTI-HS)
      • RTI Center for Community Health Evaluation and Economics Research
      • Health Equity
    • Transformative Research Unit for Equity​
      • Equity Capacity Building Hub
      • Social and Economic Justice Research Collaborative
      • Narrative Research and Community Engagement Lab
    • Education and Workforce Development
      • Early Childhood
      • K-12 Education
      • Postsecondary Education
      • Career and Adult Education and Workforce Development
      • Education Policy, Systems, and Governance
      • Education Research Methodologies
      • Education Technologies
    • International Development
      • Energy for Development
      • Environment
      • Global Food Security, Agriculture, and Nutrition
      • Global Health
      • Governance
      • International Education
      • Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, Learning, and Adapting (MERLA)
      • Youth and Economic Opportunity
      • Building Resilience Against COVID-19 in Developing Countries
      • Water
    • Climate Change
      • Clean Energy Technology and Renewables
      • Climate Finance
      • Climate Justice and Equity
      • Climate Planning, Preparedness and Resilience
      • Climate Policy
      • Climate Vulnerability, Adaptation, and Mitigation
      • Economic Impacts of Climate Change
    • Water
      • Food-Energy-Water Nexus
      • Water Quality
      • Water Sector Governance
      • Urban Sanitation
      • Water Service Provider Strengthening
      • Water Resources Management
    • Energy Research
      • Carbon Capture and Utilization
      • Biomass Conversion
      • Natural Gas
      • Energy Efficiency
      • Industrial Water
      • Syngas Processing
    • Environmental Sciences
      • Air Quality
      • RTI Center for Water Resources
      • Urban Sustainability
      • Toxics
      • Building Resiliency in the FEW Nexus
      • Climate Change Sciences and Analysis
      • Environmental Policy
      • Environmental Justice
      • Sustainable Materials & Waste Management Solutions
    • Justice Research and Policy
      • RTI Center for Community Safety and Crime Prevention
      • RTI Center for Policing Research and Investigative Science
      • Child Well-Being and Family Strengthening
      • RTI Center for Forensic Sciences
    • Food Security and Agriculture
      • Market Systems Strengthening
      • Food Safety
      • Food and Nutrition
      • Global Food Security, Agriculture, and Nutrition
      • Climate-Smart Agriculture
      • Agricultural Innovation
      • Obesity Prevention
    • Innovation Ecosystems
      • Innovation Advising
      • Innovation for Economic Growth
      • Innovation for Emerging and Developing Economies
      • Innovation for Organizations
      • Research, Technology, and Innovation Policy
      • Technology Acceleration
    • Military Support
      • Military Behavioral Health
      • Military Health and Human Performance
      • Military Sexual Assault, Harassment, and Domestic Violence Prevention

    Practice Areas

  • Services + Capabilities
    • Surveys and Data Collection
      • Survey Design
      • Instrument Development
      • Survey Methodologies
      • Data Collection
      • Establishment Surveys
      • Health Registries
      • Data Analysis and Reporting
      • Research Operations Center
    • Statistics and Data Science
      • Survey Statistics
      • Environmental Statistics
      • Coordinating Centers for Multisite Studies
      • Analysis and Design of Complex Data
      • Biostatistics
      • RTI Center for Data Science
    • Evaluation, Assessment and Analysis
      • Evaluation Design and Execution
      • Advanced Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods
      • Evaluation, Monitoring, and Assessment
      • Economic Analysis
      • Evaluating Communication Interventions and Campaigns
      • Evidence Synthesis for Policy and Practice
      • Risk Assessment and Prediction
    • Program Design and Implementation
      • Systems Strengthening and Scaling
      • Capacity Assessment and Building
      • Policy Reform Support
      • Curriculum and Teacher Professional Development
      • Interventions and Prevention Programs
      • Implementation Science
    • Digital Solutions for Social Impact
      • Human-Centered Design of Digital Solutions
      • Digital Product Development
      • Digital Communication Campaigns
      • Digital Data Analytics
    • Research Technologies
      • Survey Technologies
      • Data Management and Decision Support Systems
      • Geospatial Science, Technology, and Visualization
      • ICT for Limited-Resource Settings
      • Mobile Applications
      • Web Applications
      • Bioinformatics
    • Drug Discovery and Development
      • Medicinal Chemistry
      • Molecular Design and Cheminformatics
      • Behavioral Pharmacology
      • Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK)
      • In Vitro Pharmacology, Bioassay Development, and High-Throughput Screening (HTS)
      • Isotope Labeling
      • Regulatory Consulting and Support for Medical Products
    • Analytical Laboratory Sciences
      • Bioanalytical and Toxicology Research
      • Forensic Sciences
      • Physicochemical Characterizations
      • Metabolomics
      • Proficiency Testing and Reference Materials
      • Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance
      • Microbiology
      • Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutics
    • Engineering & Technology R&D
      • Biomedical Technologies
      • Decarbonization Sciences
      • Environmental Exposure & Protection
      • Materials & Environment
      • Sustainable Energy Solutions

    Services + Capabilities

  • Centers
    • RTI Center for Advanced Methods Development
    • RTI Center for Communication Science
      • Communication Research
      • Communication Design
      • Communication Delivery
    • RTI Center for Data Science
    • RTI Center for Education Services
      • Teaching and Learning
      • Education Leadership
      • Peer Learning Networks
      • Strategic Consulting
    • RTI Center for Forensic Sciences
    • RTI Center for Global Noncommunicable Diseases
      • Program Financing & Economics for NCDs
      • Health Systems Strengthening for NCDs
      • Communication Science and Behavior Change for NCDs
      • Implementation Science for NCDs
    • RTI Center for Newborn Screening, Ethics, and Disability Studies
      • Disability Studies
      • Ethics
      • Newborn Screening
    • RTI Center for Water Resources
      • Water Resources Sectors
      • Water Resources Services
      • Water Resources Tools
    • RTI Global Gender Center
    • North Carolina Center for Optimizing Military Performance
    • NCCU-RTI Center for Applied Research in Environmental Sciences
    • RTI Center for Climate Solutions

    Centers

  • Impact
    • Newsroom
    • Insights Blog
    • Events
    • Publications
    • RTI Press
      • About the RTI Press
      • Instructions for Authors
      • RTI Press Collections
    • Projects
    • Global Reach
      • Asia
      • Eastern Europe and Central Asia
      • RTI International India
      • Africa
      • Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
      • Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

    Impact

  • Experts
    • Our Experts
    • In-Depth With Our Experts
    • Related News
    • Experts In the Media
    • RTI Fellow Program

    Experts

  • Emerging Issues
    • COVID-19 Research
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Global Health Security
    • Cannabis Research
    • Opioid Research
      • Interventions for Opioid Use Disorders
      • Preventing Opioid Misuse and Overdose
      • Treating Opioid Use Disorders
    • Policing Research and Investigative Science
    • Drone Research and Application
    • E-cigarette Research
    • Zika Virus Research
    • Integrated Governance

    Emerging Issues

  • COVID-19 Research + Response
  • Global Reach
  • Insights Blog
  • Newsroom
  • RTI Press
  • Publications
  • Partner With Us
  • Careers
  • Facebook IconTwitter IconInstagram IconYouTube IconLinkedin Icon
Impact

Strengthening and Improving Access to Critical Health Services for Filipino Families

  • Home
  • Impact
  • Strengthening and Improving Access to Critical Health Services for Filipino Families

ReachHealth builds on the success of previous investments in family planning, maternal and child health, and nutrition services

Project Summary

Objective:

To reduce unmet needs for family planning services, decrease the teen pregnancy rate, and improve newborn morbidity and mortality across 11 regions in the Philippines.

Approach:

Supporting health officials and local governments in their efforts to establish policies that improve access to care.

Impact:

In 2019, our communications campaign reached more than 830,000 couples, 120,000 of whom were referred for family planning services. ReachHealth is slated to continue through 2023.


Boxes of personal protective equipment destined for health facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Cebu City, Philippines.

Fighting COVID-19 in the Philippines

As COVID-19 swept the world in 2020, the Philippines became Southeast Asia’s most affected country. Read more about our response to the pandemic.

Continue reading below about the ReachHealth project.

The Philippines is the 13th largest country in the world by population. As the second largest country in Southeast Asia, it maintains the highest fertility rate in the region and the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy and poor health outcomes for newborns.

In order to address these challenges, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the ReachHealth project (2018–2023), which aims to strengthen and improve access to critical health services for Filipino families by reducing unmet needs for family planning services, decreasing teen pregnancy rate, and improving newborn morbidity and mortality across 11 regions in the Philippines. The project works to reach disadvantaged women, adolescents, and traditionally underserved populations with these services.

The USAID ReachHealth Project builds upon the success of previous USAID investments in the Philippines, including the RTI-led USAID HealthGov (2006–2013) and LuzonHealth (2013–2018) projects, which expanded access to high-quality, integrated family planning and maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition services in Luzon, the largest island region in the Philippines. Under LuzonHealth, the number of individuals using family planning services increased from 1.5 million (66 percent of the population) in 2013 to 2.1 million (68 percent) in 2017 and the number of deliveries attended by skilled birth attendants increased from nearly 56 percent to 75 percent between 2013 and 2016.

As the lead implementing partner of the USAID ReachHealth Project, we provide technical assistance to: 

  • Increase access to comprehensive services and strengthen the capacity of healthcare workers to deliver evidence-based quality care, strengthen health systems and functionality across governance, budgeting and finance, human resources, supply chain, and data
  • Improve individual, household and community knowledge of family planning and maternal and neonatal health (FP/MNH)
  • Increase demand for FP/MNH services and transform gender norms
  • Strengthen FP availability and commodity security.

Building local ownership to promote better maternal, neonatal, and adolescent health outcomes

We work with Philippine counterparts—such as the Department of Health (DOH), the Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM), civil society, and the private sector—across 32 provinces and chartered cities (called project sites), located in 11 regions, which geographically covers almost half of the Philippines’ 100+ million population.

The signing of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law in February 2019 was a significant step forward in helping everyone in the Philippines access better health care services. A critical element for success in implementing the law is a fully functioning health care provider network, organized within the province or city-wide healthcare service delivery mechanisms, funded through special health fund (SHF).

In collaboration with the World Health Organization and other USAID implementing partners, the project assisted the DOH in developing a UHC Planning Toolkit and in training of trainers nationwide. It also supported the UHC Strategic Planning and enhancement of Local Government Investment Plans for Health in 16 UHC integration sites. Currently, activities are underway to support the Philippines DOH and the local government units (LGUs) to roll out the necessary local policies and regulations for the establishment of LGUs health boards, that will be tasked with further managing the UHC implementation and financing through the SHF at the local levels.

These collaborative approaches are an important step toward building stronger health systems and a crucial catalyst in the Philippines’ journey to self-reliance.

From data to action: increasing access to quality client-centered family planning care and services

In early 2019, the USAID ReachHealth Project conducted a baseline survey that helped gather good quality data to promote evidence-based decision making. As of June 2019, over 2,000 public and private health facilities across all 32 project sites had participated in the survey.

In order to facilitate use of the data for successful decision-making, the project conducted a total of 39 Data Utilization Workshops involving almost 1,000 participants from rural health units, hospitals, and birthing facilities that had provided data in the baseline surveys. These sessions helped health facilities staff analyze the raw data for their most important family planning indicators, and determine what actions were needed to maintain or improve their levels, and what technical assistance was needed.

Recently, the project used an innovative human-centered design process to explore the root causes of teen pregnancy, surveying more than 200 teens, parents and other allies to uncover social, informational, and structural barriers to preventing teen pregnancy. Most surprisingly, this study revealed that once a teen becomes pregnant, medical and social services welcome her, but there are few resources available for teens to prevent the first pregnancy. Five prototype solutions to help prevent teenage pregnancies have been developed and will be shared with project partners and tested in the coming months.

Promoting family planning services through a national campaign

To promote and increase utilization of FP services nationwide, the USAID ReachHealth Project facilitated a workshop which resulted in creating a national communications campaign. “Usap tayo sa family planning” or “let’s talk about family planning” was launched nationwide in September 2019 and by the end of the year reached over 830,000 couples. Of these couples, almost 120,000 with unmet FP needs have been helped or referred for services. 

The project has also supported the DOH in responding to the problem of commodity stock-outs experienced by several health facilities. Through continuous engagement at the national and regional levels, and with health officers from the 32 priority sites, the project contributed to lowering the average stock-outs by 37 percent—from 21.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019 to 13.5 percent in September 2019.

Continuing through 2023, the ReachHealth Project hopes to sustainably strengthen the availability and improve access to critical family planning services for Filipino families. The project has one vision:

A Philippines that breaks free from the restraints that limit the ability of a woman, man, or adolescent to seek and access high-quality, innovative, and modern FP for themselves, and necessary lifesaving interventions for pregnant mothers and their newborns.

Share

Clients

  • U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Partners

  • Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs
  • Duke Global Health Innovation Center

Our Experts

Laurentiu Stan
Laurentiu Stan Chief of Party
Cristina Bisson
Cristina Bisson Health Systems Strengthening Director

Practice Areas

Global Health

Services

Interventions and Prevention Programs

Countries

Philippines Papua New Guinea

Learn More

6 Ways USAID ReachHealth Supports the COVID-19 Response in the Philippines

Evidence for Action: Assessing the Availability of Essential Family Planning Services During COVID-19 in the Philippines

From Hotspots to Bright Spots: Fighting COVID-19 in the Barangays of the Philippines

RTI Logo
Partner With Us
  • US Government
  • Commercial
  • Foundations & Associations
  • Multilateral Donors
  • Universities
  • Suppliers
Site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Security Policy
  • Site Map
  • Terms of Use
  • Accessibility
  • Contact Us
Contact Us
Facebook Icon Twitter Icon Instagram Icon YouTube Icon Linkedin Icon
delivering the promise of science
for global good
RTI Health Solutions RTI Innovation Advisors RTI Health Advance

© 2022 RTI International. RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute. RTI and the RTI logo are U.S. registered trademarks of Research Triangle Institute.