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MEASURING COVERAGE IN MNCH; NEW FINDINGS, NEW STRATEGIES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

Wednesday, 12th of June 2013

 

 

• MEASURING COVERAGE IN MNCH; NEW FINDINGS, NEW STRATEGIES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

Full text, with graphics, is at http://www.ploscollections.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001423

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made in reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality worldwide, but many more deaths could be prevented if effective interventions were available to all who could benefit from them. Timely, high-quality measurements of intervention coverage—the proportion of a population in need of a health intervention that actually receives it—are essential to support sound decisions about progress and investments in womens and childrens health. The PLOS Medicine “Measuring Coverage in MNCH” Collection of research studies and reviews presents systematic assessments of the validity of health intervention coverage measurement based on household surveys, the primary method for estimating population-level intervention coverage in low- and middle-income countries. In this overview of the Collection, we discuss how and why some of the indicators now being used to track intervention coverage may not provide fully reliable coverage measurements, and how a better understanding of the systematic and random error inherent in these coverage indicators can help in their interpretation and use. We draw together strategies proposed across the Collection for improving coverage measurement, and recommend continued support for high-quality household surveys at national and sub-national levels, supplemented by surveys with lighter tools that can be implemented every 1–2 years and by complementary health-facility-based assessments of service quality. Finally, we stress the importance of learning more about coverage measurement to strengthen the foundation for assessing and improving the progress of maternal, newborn, and child health programs.

Please see later in the article for the Editors Summary

Citation: Bryce J, Arnold F, Blanc A, Hancioglu A, Newby H, et al. (2013) Measuring Coverage in MNCH: New Findings, New Strategies, and Recommendations for Action. PLoS Med 10(5): e1001423. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001423

Academic Editor: Lucy Chappell, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Maternal & Fetal Medicine and Honorary Consultant in Obstetrics, Womens Health Academic Centre, Kings College, London, United Kingdom

Published: May 7, 2013

Copyright: © 2013 Bryce et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: This work was conducted under the auspices of the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) for WHO and UNICEF, with financial support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through their grant to the US Fund for UNICEF. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations: CHERG, Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group; DHS, Demographic and Health Survey/s; MICS, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey/s; MNCH, maternal, newborn, and child health

Provenance: Submitted as part of a sponsored Collection; externally reviewed.

¶ Membership of the CHERG Working Group on Improving Coverage Measurement is provided in the Acknowledgments.

This paper is part of the PLOS Medicine “Measuring Coverage in MNCH” Collection.