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Measuring progress towards the MDG for maternal health: Including a measure of the health system's capacity to treat obstetric complications
Author(s) -
Bailey P.,
Paxton A.,
Lobis S.,
Fry D.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of gynecology and obstetrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.895
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1879-3479
pISSN - 0020-7292
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijgo.2006.01.029
Subject(s) - medicine , psychological intervention , strengths and weaknesses , health indicator , maternal health , millennium development goals , environmental health , monitoring and evaluation , health care , health facility , measure (data warehouse) , developing country , nursing , health services , population , economic growth , database , computer science , economics , philosophy , epistemology
Objective This paper argues for an additional indicator for measuring progress of the Millennium Development Goal for maternal health—the availability of emergency obstetric care. Methods MDG monitoring will be based on two indicators: the maternal mortality ratio and the proportion of births attended by skilled personnel. Strengths and weaknesses of a third indicator are discussed Results The availability of EmOC measures the capacity of the health system to respond to direct obstetric complications. Benefits to using this additional indicator are its usefulness in determining an adequate distribution of services and showing management at all levels what life‐saving interventions are not being provided, and stimulate thought as to why. It can reflect programmatic changes over a relatively short period of time and data requirements are not onerous. Conclusion A measure of strength of the health system is important since many interventions depend on the health system for their implementation.