Healthcare access and quality of birth care: Narratives of women living with obstetric fistula in rural Tanzania
Background: Increasing births with skilled attendants and increasing health facilities with Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) can reduce maternal mortality and are considered critical interventions for ensuring safe motherhood. Despite Tanzania’s policy to support women to give birth with the assistance of skilled personnel, some women do not access this care. This article uses women’s stories […]
‘An uneasy compromise’: Strategies and dilemmas in realizing a permissive abortion law in Ethiopia
Introduction: At the turn of the century, when the Millennium Development Goals placed maternal mortality reduction high on the global agenda, Ethiopia relaxed its restrictive abortion law to expand grounds on which a woman could legally obtain an abortion. This radical policy shift took place within a context of predominant anti-abortion public opinion shaped by […]
The Health Extension Program and its association with change in utilization of selected maternal health services in tigray region, Ethiopia: A segmented linear regression analysis
Background: In 2003, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health established the Health Extension Program (HEP), with the goal of improving access to health care and health promotion activities in rural areas of the country. This paper aims to assess the association of the HEP with improved utilization of maternal health services in Northern Ethiopia using institution-based […]
Understanding the implementation of Direct Health Facility Financing and its effect on health system performance in Tanzania: A non-controlled before and after mixed method study protocol
Background: Globally, good health system performance has resulted from continuous reform, including adaptation of Decentralisation by Devolution policies, for example, the Direct Health Facility Financing (DHFF). Generally, the role of decentralisation in the health sector is to improve efficiency, to foster innovations and to improve quality, patient experience and accountability. However, such improvements have not […]
Understanding the barriers to the utilization of primary health care in a low-income setting: Implications for health policy and planning
The essence of primary health care is the provision of essential health services and commodities to individuals and communities using available, acceptable and sustainable resources. However, there has been a growing lack of confidence by the populace as evidenced by poor utilization of the services. This study sought to identify the predominant barriers affecting the […]
Seasonality, climate change, and food security during pregnancy among indigenous and non-indigenous women in rural Uganda: Implications for maternal-infant health
Background Climate change is expected to decrease food security globally. Many Indigenous communities have heightened sensitivity to climate change and food insecurity for multifactorial reasons including close relationships with the local environment and socioeconomic inequities which increase exposures and challenge adaptation to climate change. Pregnant women have additional sensitivity to food insecurity, as antenatal undernutrition […]
The influence of socio-cultural interpretations of pregnancy threats on health-seeking behavior among pregnant women in urban Accra, Ghana
Background: Although antenatal care coverage in Ghana is high, there exist gaps in the continued use of maternity care, especially utilization of skilled assistance during delivery. Many pregnant women seek care from different sources aside the formal health sector. This is due to negative perceptions resulting from poor service quality experiences in health facilities. Moreover, […]
“Mine did not breastfeed”, mothers’ experiences in breastfeeding children aged 0 to 24 months with oral clefts in Uganda
Background: Appropriate breastfeeding is vital for infant and young child nutrition. Annually, oral clefts affect 0.73 per 1000 children in Uganda. Despite this low incidence, children with a cleft face breastfeeding difficulty which affect their nutrition status. In addition, knowledge on maternal experiences with breastfeeding and support is limited. We explored maternal perceptions, experiences with […]
In urban South Africa, 16 year old adolescents experience greater health equality than children
Despite the strongly established link between socio-economic status (SES) and health across most stages of the life-course, the evidence for a socio-economic gradient in adolescent health outcomes is less consistent. This paper examines associations between household, school, and neighbourhood SES measures with body composition outcomes in 16 year old South African Black urban adolescents from […]
The landscape for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis during pregnancy and breastfeeding in Malawi and Zambia: A qualitative study
High HIV incidence rates have been observed among pregnant and breastfeeding women in sub-Saharan Africa. Oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) can effectively reduce HIV acquisition in women during these periods; however, understanding of its acceptability and feasibility in antenatal and postpartum populations remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted in-depth interviews with 90 study participants […]
