Door-to-door canvassing as a means of family planning patient recruitment.

Many recent articles have examined the delivery of family planning services to low-income areas. Some have described the implementation of specific regional family planning programs."5 Others have been more provocative, stressing that the government has a social responsibility to provide low-cost birth control to low-income neighborhoods."u Still others have used a cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate family planning programs.`221 One study found reactions to the concept of a door-to-door birth control program more favorable than had been expected.' It is the purpose of this paper to evaluate the effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing as a means of family planning patient recruitment. A summer program of family planning education and patient recruitment was undertaken in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut. Its purpose was to make birth control information and facilities available to those persons who have had limited access to such services. The Hill neighborhood was selected at the request of the director of the local OEO program, who felt that the community had a strong interest in family planning services. Our activities were coordinated with the many other social services begun in this neighborhood within the past five years. The low-income neighborhood contains about 22,000 residents: 68%o white, 32%o non-white. The white population is mainly composed of middleaged and elderly Italian Catholics, who own homes on segregated blocks. The non-white population is about 90%o black and 10%o Puerto Rican, and tend to live in renter-occupied two to six family houses. In the central part of the Hill the population of child bearing age (i.e., women between the ages of 14 and 44) is 50%o white, 50%o non-white.1' The authors of this article were the participants in the program. We are all of white, middle-class background, having a common interest in community affairs. At the beginning of our project, none had had any previous professional medical training. As preparation for the project, we were given an intensive, one-week training program, which covered in depth