Abstract
BackgroundReducing within-country inequities in the coverage of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) interventions is essential to improving a country’s maternal and child health and survival rates. The community-based health extension program (HEP) of Ethiopia, launched in 2003, aims to provide equitable primary health care services. Since 2008 the Last Ten Kilometers Project (L10K) has been supporting the HEP in promoting equitable MNCH interventions in 115 districts covering about 14 million people. We report the inequities in MNCH programmatic indicators in 2008 and in 2010 in the L10K areas, along with changes in equity between the two survey periods, and the implications of these results for the national program.MethodsThe study used cross-sectional surveys of 3932 and 3867 women from 129 representative kebeles (communities) conducted in December 2008 and December 2010, respectively. Nineteen HEP outreach activity coverage and MNCH care practice indicators were calculated for each survey period, stratified by the inequity factors considered (i.e. age, education, wealth and distance from the nearest health facility). We calculated relative inequities using concentration indices for each of the indicators and inequity factors. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals and survey design adjusted Wald’s statistics were used to assess differentials in equity.ResultsEducation and age related inequities in the MNCH indicators were the most prominent (observed for 13 of the 19 outcomes analyzed), followed in order by wealth inequity (observed for eight indicators), and inequity due to distance from the nearest health facility (observed for seven indicators). Age inequities in six of the indicators increased between 2008 and 2010; nevertheless, there was no consistent pattern of changes in inequities during that period. Some related issues such as inequities due to wealth in household visits by the health extension workers and prevalence of modern family household; and inequities due to education in household visits by community health promoters showed improvement.ConclusionsAddressing these inequities in MNCH interventions by age, education and wealth will contribute significantly toward achieving Ethiopia’s maternal health targets for the Millennium Development Goals and beyond. HEP will require more innovative strategies to achieve equitable MNCH services and outcomes and to routinely monitor the effectiveness of those strategies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12884-015-0668-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Reducing within-country inequities in the coverage of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) interventions is essential to improving a country’s maternal and child health and survival rates
Sample characteristics The distributions of the Last Ten Kilometers Project (L10K) baseline and follow-up survey respondents by region, age, and parity were similar between the two surveys (Table 3)
Between the two survey periods, the proportion of the respondents whose household was within 30 min of any health facility increased from 54 % to 63 %, while the proportion of women who were an hour or more away from any health facility declined from 22 % to 9 %
Summary
Reducing within-country inequities in the coverage of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) interventions is essential to improving a country’s maternal and child health and survival rates. The community-based health extension program (HEP) of Ethiopia, launched in 2003, aims to provide equitable primary health care services. Addressing inequities in maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) is a key strategy to improve maternal, newborn and child health and survival, for the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 (reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, respectively) that are set for 2015 [1], and for further improving MNCH beyond the MDGs. The Government of Ethiopia, recognizing the need to provide its people with equitable access to promotive, preventive and selected curative health services, launched the health extension program (HEP) in 2003.
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have