Abimbola Olaniran, Barbara Madaj, Sarah Bar-Zev, Nynke van den Broek
INTRODUCTION: A variety of community health workers (CHWs) provide maternal and newborn health (MNH) services in low-income and middle-income settings. However, there is a need for a better understanding of the diversity in type of CHW in each setting and responsibility, role, training duration and ...
Mahbub Elahi Chowdhury, Carine Ronsmans, Japhet Killewo, Iqbal Anwar et al.
Background Few studies have assessed whether the poorest people in developing countries benefit from giving birth at home rather than in a facility. We analysed whether socioeconomic status results in differences in the use of professional midwives at home and in a basic obstetric facility in a rura...
Ophira Ginsburg, Rajan Badwe, Peter Boyle, Gemma Derrick et al.
Breast and cervical cancer are major threats to the health of women globally, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. Radical progress to close the global cancer divide for women requires not only evidence-based policy making, but also broad multisectoral collaboration that capitalis...
Julio Frenk, Lincoln Chen, Zulfiqar A Bhutta, Jordan Cohen et al.
Jason Phua, Gavin M. Joynt, Masaji Nishimura, Yiyun Deng et al.
Purpose To compare the attitudes of physicians towards withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments in intensive care units (ICUs) in low-middle-income Asian countries and regions with those in high-income ones, and to explore differences in the role of families and surrogates, legal risks...
Vivek Verma, Ramesh Vishwakarma, Dilip C. Nath, Hafiz T. A. Khan et al.
BACKGROUND: Caesarean section is considered a relatively preferable and safe method of delivery as compared to normal delivery. Since the last decade, its prevalence has increased in both developed and developing countries. In the context of developing countries viz., South Asia (the highest populat...
Simon M. Collin, Iqbal Anwar, Carine Ronsmans
BACKGROUND: Bangladesh is committed to the fifth Millennium Development Goal (MDG-5) target of reducing its maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015. Since the early 1990s, Bangladesh has followed a strategy of improving access to facilities equipped and staffed to provide em...
Tanvir Huda, Morseda Chowdhury, Shams El Arifeen, Michael J. Dibley
INTRODUCTION: Improving maternal health remains one of the targets of sustainable development goals. A maternal death can occur at any time during pregnancy, but delivery is by far the most dangerous time for both the woman and her baby. Delivery at a health facility can avoid most maternal deaths o...
P. K. Dhillon, Panniyammakal Jeemon, N. K. Arora, P. Mathur et al.
BACKGROUND: The South-East Asia region (SEAR) accounts for one-quarter of the world's population, 40% of the global poor and ∼30% of the global disease burden, with a disproportionately large share of tuberculosis (35%), injuries (30%), maternal (33%) and <5-year-old mortality (30%). In this article...
Mamuda Aminu, Bettina Utz, Abdul Halim, Nynke van den Broek
BACKGROUND: It is estimated that 18.5 million Caesarean Sections (CS) are conducted annually worldwide and about one-third of them are done without medical indications and described as "unnecessary". Although developed countries account for most of the rise in the trend of unnecessary CS, more studi...
Andrew M. Briggs, Carmen Huckel Schneider, Helen Slater, Joanne M. Jordan et al.
INTRODUCTION: Despite the profound burden of disease, a strategic global response to optimise musculoskeletal (MSK) health and guide national-level health systems strengthening priorities remains absent. Auspiced by the Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal Health (G-MUSC), we aimed to empirically der...
Diana Bowser, Susan Sparkes, Andrew Mitchell, Thomas J. Bossert et al.
BACKGROUND: Since the early 2000s, there have been large increases in donor financing of human resources for health (HRH), yet few studies have examined their effects on health systems. OBJECTIVE: To determine the scope and impact of investments in HRH by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis ...
Wenjuan Wang, Lindsay Mallick, Courtney Allen, Thomas W. Pullum
BACKGROUND: The persistence of preventable maternal and newborn deaths highlights the importance of quality of care as an essential element in coverage interventions. Moving beyond the conventional measurement of crude coverage, we estimated effective coverage of facility delivery by adjusting for f...
Shegufta Shefa Sikder, Alain Labrique, Abu Ahmed Shamim, Hasmot Ali et al.
BACKGROUND: In rural Bangladesh, more than 75% of all births occur at home in the absence of skilled birth attendants. Population-based data are lacking on the burden and risk factors for obstetric complications in settings with low rates of institutional delivery. We sought to describe the prevalen...
Aduragbemi Banke‐Thomas, Ololade Wright, Olatunji Sonoiki, Oluwasola Banke-Thomas et al.
BACKGROUND: Lack of timely and quality emergency obstetric care (EmOC) has contributed significantly to maternal morbidity and mortality, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Since 2009, the global guideline, referred to as the 'handbook', has been used to monitor availability, ...