Based on the 2001 Maternal and Child Health Survey (MCHS), 61.3 percent of approximately 2 million Filipino children 12 to 23 months old were fully immunized in 2001 as compared to 65.2 percent of children of the same ages based on the 2000 MCHS. The percentage of children fully immunized in rural areas registered a decrease of six percentage points - from 62.7 percent in 2000 to 56.5 percent in 2001. The percentage in urban areas decreased slightly - from 68.0 percent in 2000 to 66.9 percent in 2001. A child is considered fully immunized if he/she has received BCG, 3 doses of DPT, 3 doses of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) and anti-measles vaccines before turning one year old.

Contraceptive use among married women in the Philippines has almost tripled over the last 30 years, from 17 percent in 1973 to 49 percent in 2003 (Table 1). Furthermore, two Filipino women in five who are not currently using a contraceptive method declare having the intention to use one in the future (Table 2), according to results just released by the 2003 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). The National Statistics Office (NSO) conducted the NDHS, a nationally representative survey of 13,000 households, 14,000 women age 15-49 and 5,000 men age 15-54.