This case control study was conducted on a sample ofrn1000 users of services of health stations (cases) and 1000rnnon-users of the services (controls) during the studyrnperiod which was between October 17 and November 26 1988.rnThe study was done in 6 randomly selected health stationsrnand villages within a 5 km radius of the health stations inrnYererna Kereyu Awraja, central Ethiopia, where the authorrnis the district health manager. The major objective ofrnthe stud y was to determine factors influencing thernutilization of health stations in the Awraja. Informationrnfrom the study population was collected on differentrnfactors which possibly affect utilization, includingrndemographic factors, such as age, sex, occupation,rnethnici ty and education; Socio-cul tural factors, such asrnpeople's at ti tude toward the health workers 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 lrnanalyses of the 2 groups showed that non-utilizers werernmore likely than utilizers to come from the younger orrnolder age groups, to be female, to be a farmer, to be from the Oromo ethnic group, & to have a lower level ofrneducation. There was also a difference between cases andrncontrols in perceived travel time to the health units,rnperceived quality of the services, knowledge about freernâ€¢rnservices, knowledge 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.