This case contro l s t udy was conducted on a sample ofrn1000 users o f servi ces of hea lth stations (cases) and 1000rnn on-users of the s e r v i ces (controls) during the studyrnperiod whi ch was between October 17 and November 26 1988.rnThe study was done in 6 randomly selected health stationsrnand vi llages within a 5 km radius of the health stations inrnYererna Kereyu Awraja, central Ethiopia, where the authorrnis the district health manager . The ma jor objective ofrnthe stud y was to determine factors influencing thernutilization of health stations in the Awraja. Informationrnfrom the study population ",as col l ec t e d on differentrnfactors which possibly affect u ti li z ation, includingrndemographic factors , such as age, sex, occupation,rnethnici ty and education ; Socio- cul t ural f actors, such asrnpeople's a ttitude toward t he heal t h wori{ers and services;rnand economic status of the people. The mean age of thernstudy population was 20.8 years and 60 . 9% of the subjectsrnwere women. Farmers constituted 53. 3%, the Oromo ethnicrngroup 59.7% and the literacy rate was 48.3%. Case contro lrnanalys e s of the 2 groups showed that non-utilizers werernmore likely t han u ti li zers to come from the younger orrnolder age groups, to be f emal e, to be a farmer, to be fromrnviirnthe Dromo ethnic group, & to have a low e r level ofrneducation . There was also a differ ence between cases andrncontrols in p e rce ived travel time to the h ealth units,rnperceived quality of the serv ices, knowl e dge about freernservices, knoHl edge about the importance , and availabilityrnof some of the services, and the income pattern. There wasrnno significant difference between the users and non-usersrnwith regard to religion, marital status of the respondents,rnor who advised the individuals to use or not to use thernservices. These differences indicate a need to teachrncommuni ties about health & health services and to reducernsocio-cultural barriers to utilization of the services.rnviii