These decisions involve individuals, couples, families, and even peer groups. People receive many contradictory messages about sexual behavior and contraceptives that compete with the messages of family planning campaigns. Also, what many people think they know about family planning is wrong. Thus the need for accurate communication is urgent and continuous. People obtain information about family planning both from the mass media and through interpersonal communication.
People also hear about family planning in schools, social programs, and communities.
Interpersonal communication, whether among family members and friends or between service providers and clients, plays an important role in people's decisions about family planning, helping people decide whether, when, which method, and how to use family planning. After exposure to mass-media coverage of family planning, people typically discuss family planning with friends or relatives, or they make contact with a provider promoted in the mass media, such as a clinic, a CBD worker, or a telephone counselor.