Guidelines for Overcoming Design Problems in Family Planning Operations Research

This report is concerned with designs for field intervention studies utilized in operations research. Beginning with an overview of the objectives of operations research, the authors go on to review the difficulties associated with using "true experimental" designs. Proposed guidelines for designing quasi-experimental studies are then discussed. The guidelines focus on using multiple sources of data, multiple measurements over time, and multiple replications of the study intervention. Finally, an example is presented of one ongoing operations research study in Sri Lanka.