ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes why and how applied research carried out in a national public health program sometimes influenced program action in the field – and sometimes did not. The setting is the Taiwan family planning program. The time period is from the mid 1960’s through the mid 1970’s. The focus is on the productive integration of research findings into community health education programs and the dissemination of these findings to stimulate other Asian countries at earlier stages of program planning and implementation. The results of quantitative research, particularly operations research and social surveys, recorded documents, and interviews comprise the methodology used to collect data. The 1973 East West Communication Institute Conference on “Making Population-Family Planning Research Useful” also recommended that more case studies be developed.
