Barriers and facilitators of access to maternal, newborn and child health services during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria: findings from a qualitative study
Background: COVID-19 pandemic may have affected the utilization of maternal and newborn child health services in Nigeria but the extent, directions, contextual factors at all the levels of healthcare service delivery in Nigeria is yet to be fully explored. The objective of the study was to explore the barriers and facilitators of access to MNCH […]
Effect of Delays in Maternal Access to Healthcare on Neonatal Mortality in Sierra Leone: A Social Autopsy Case–Control Study at a Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Site
Introduction: In low-resource settings, a social autopsy tool has been proposed to measure the effect of delays in access to healthcare on deaths, complementing verbal autopsy questionnaires routinely used to determine cause of death. This study estimates the contribution of various delays in maternal healthcare to subsequent neonatal mortality using a social autopsy case–control design. […]
Why don’t illiterate women in rural, Northern Tanzania, access maternal healthcare?
Background: In 2017, roughly 540 women in Sub-Saharan Africa died every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. To stem this public-health crisis, the WHO recommends a standard continuity of maternal healthcare, yet most women do not receive this care. Surveys suggest that illiteracy limits the uptake of the recommended care, yet little […]
Effects of terrorist attacks on access to maternal healthcare services: A national longitudinal study in Burkina Faso
Introduction Most of the literature on terrorist attacks’ health impacts has focused on direct victims rather than on distal consequences in the overall population. There is limited knowledge on how terrorist attacks can be detrimental to access to healthcare services. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of terrorist attacks on the […]
Equity in Maternal Health in South Africa: Analysis of Health Service Access and Health Status in a National Household Survey
Background:South Africa is increasingly focused on reducing maternal mortality. Documenting variation in access to maternal health services across one of the most inequitable nations could assist in re-direction of resources.Methods:Analysis draws on a population-based household survey that used multistage-stratified sampling. Women, who in the past two years were pregnant (1113) or had a child (1304), […]
Inequalities in access to birth by caesarean section in the context of user fee exemption for maternal health services in southwest and north central Nigeria
Background: User fee exemption for maternal healthcare services was introduced with a focus on providing free maternal health services, including caesarean sections (CS), in Nigeria. This policy has had a positive impact on access to facility-based delivery; however, the extent to which inequality in access to CS exists in the context of user fee exemption […]
The PRECISE (PREgnancy Care Integrating translational Science, Everywhere) database: Open-access data collection in maternal and newborn health
In less-resourced settings, adverse pregnancy outcome rates are unacceptably high. To effect improvement, we need accurate epidemiological data about rates of death and morbidity, as well as social determinants of health and processes of care, and from each country (or region) to contextualise strategies. The PRECISE database is a unique core infrastructure of a generic, […]
How intra-familial decision-making affects women’s access to, and use of maternal healthcare services in Ghana: A qualitative study
Background: There is some evidence to suggest that within the household, family and community settings, women in sub-Saharan Africa often have limited autonomy and control over their reproductive health decisions. However, there are few studies that examine how intra-familial decision-making power may affect women’s ability to access and use maternal health services. The purpose of […]
Geographical access to point-of-care testing for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy as an integral part of maternal healthcare in Ghana
Background: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are associated with high maternal mortality in Ghana and globally. Evidence shows that there is poor availability of pregnancy-related point-of-care (POC) tests in Ghana’s primary healthcare (PHC) clinics (health centre or community-based health planning services facilities). Therefore, we employed geographic information systems to estimate the geographical distribution of and […]
Increasing women’s access to skilled pregnancy care to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality in rural Edo State, Nigeria: a randomized controlled trial
Background: Nigeria presently has the second highest absolute number of maternal deaths and perinatal deaths (stillbirth and neonatal deaths) in the world. The country accounts for up to 14% of global maternal deaths and is second only to India in the number of women who die during childbirth. Although all parts of the country are […]
