An Assessment of Family Planning Decision Makers' and Advocates' Needs and Strategies in Three East African Countries.

Context: Despite decades of evidence-based advocacy for family planning in developing countries, research on how decision makers perceive and respond to such efforts is lacking.

Methods: A literature review yielded 10 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1999 and 2012 on decision makers' needs for and experiences with health advocacy and evidence. Two sets of questions about family planning research and advocacy-one for decision makers and another for advocates-were developed from emerging themes and used in structured interviews with 68 key informants in Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi.