SOCIAL NETWORK ASSOCIATIONS WITH CONTRACEPTIVE USE AMONG CAMEROONIAN WOMEN IN VOLUNTARY-ASSOCIATIONS

This paper examines the association between social networks and contra ceptive use. Using data from a survey of women belonging to voluntary associations in Yaounde, Cameroon, we find that the behavior and chara cteristics of the members of a respondent's personal networks are asso ciated with her contraceptive use, over and above a set of her own ind ividual characteristics that are usually found to be important. Respon dents who report that their network partners approve of contraception, use it, and encourage the respondent to use are more likely to use co ntraception themselves; the association with encouragement is particul arly strong. Moreover, there is a strong association between the speci fic methods of contraception used by a respondent and those used by he r network partners, suggesting that members of personal networks excha nge and evaluate specific methods. Because most of the respondent's ne twork partners were interviewed, we are able to compare the respondent 's perceptions of contraceptive use by her network partners with the n etwork partner's actual use. We find that it is perceptions of use tha t matter, even if those perception are incorrect. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sc ience Ltd.