Increasing institutional delivery and access to emergency obstetric care services in rural Uttar Pradesh: Implications for behavior change communication

The Population Council conducted a formative in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP), India to determine the impact of the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) scheme on the current status of institutional delivery in the region, to understand the facilitating factors and barriers in delivering in a health facility, and to identify programmatic and behavior change communication (BCC) initiatives that could accelerate the adoption of institutional delivery. JSY was launched as an intervention to address the barriers to institutional delivery, through the introduction of community-based women volunteers. The study shows that with the introduction of the JSY the rate of institutional delivery jumped to 44 percent and was the most important factor that increased the rate of institutional deliveries in UP. Thus, antenatal checkups and audience-specific messages are among the key BCC strategies offered in this policy brief